Manhattan
by Dancer31496
Summary: 'The decision isn't one that she never saw herself making, it's just one that, in the early years, she couldn't fathom.'
1. Chapter 1

Inspired, clear to you if you're a Sara fan, by Sara Bareilles Manhattan.

There was just something about this song, and I couldn't figure out what exactly it was, besides the fact that it's Sara Bareilles so of course it's beautiful and genius and I'm obsessed, that kept drawing me back in. I kept listening to it, over and over, pretty much at least two or three times a day, till finally, literally one night lying in bed blogging about them pesky ole otps of mine, I realized that it reminded me of Liv and El. Obvious reason, Manhattan, less obvious but still really obvious reason is that if somehow some way both Liv and El ended up living in Manhattan, aka after that divorce he got after he left svu, even though that's so not where this is set, cause come on we all know Kath wouldn't be able to handle having him around that much, especially not with that not so well oiled, kinda not functioning so hot head of his you know he'd have, she's the one I saw leaving. After all, she's the runner. *Cough cough* Oregon.

Anyway, so I figure out it's them that keeps drawing me back, so, what else to do? But write this kinda half assed just cause it's not betaed and it kinda changes pov down there towards the end for a while and it's really probably not the best cause I kinda just wrote as it came and didn't really think about it, story. Yay, me!

Wow, a London Tipton moment. Low.

Okay, so back on track. It's set sometime season twelve, post season twelve but only if Jenna hadn't happened cause I ain't even trying deal with that cause this story's a hot mess all of its own, I don't know. Just, somewhere in their twelfth year of partnership cause that's just what came out and sadly, up until the end, was one of their less dramatic years. Now that's saying a lot. But its multi chapter, but as of now, I got no idea how many. Like a said, spur of the moment, mid lying in bed, mid blogging plot bunnie/song inspiration.

So yeah, now that I drug that out _way_ too long, sorry, y'all, Enjoy!

R&amp;R, babes, it's always appreciated.

Disclaimer: Nope.

**Oh, btws,** I do recommend at least listening to the song first, you don't have to listen to it while you read, cause the story is slightly, maybe a bit more than slightly, longer than the song. But give it a listen first, cause it'll give ya an idea of what's going on here.

* * *

_**You can have Manhattan, I know it's for the best.**_

_**I'll gather up the Avenues and leave them on your door step.**_

_**I'll tip toe away, so you don't have to say, you heard me leave.**_

The decision isn't one that she _never _saw herself making, it's just one that, in the early years, she couldn't fathom. Moving from the city that, even in its darkest hours, its cruelest days, its harshest nights, still somehow brought her joy. Taking every lesson she ever learned, every hard fall on her ass, and every triumph she was lucky enough to get, and pack them all up in her suit case and take off for sun, sand and warm air. And a coast that didn't contain him.

_**You can have Manhattan, I know it's what you want.**_

_**The bustle and the buildings, the weather in the fall.**_

_**And I'll bow out of place, to save you some space, for somebody new.**_

_**You can have Manhattan, cause I can't have you.**_

There was a time where even leaving Manhattan terrified her, because her love for it burrowed so deep. A time where not living 3 minutes from constant coffee or a terrible but convenient hotdog, or living in a place where you couldn't order Chinese at 3 in the morning, made her stomach churn. But she'll probably always say it, no matter what it is, or no matter what happens, he's always changed a situation. Any situation, every situation, his presence in her life and her mind has always altered and affected things. From day one. And it just got progressively worse over the years. Chronic reason number 4,000 why she's still, and mostly always has been for the last 12 years, single.

He met someone new. 6 months after his divorce was final, at a coffee shop, their coffee shop, before work one morning. Her names Amanda. She's a Vet. It makes her want to throw up.

They've lasted three months. Sometimes it really hurts her heart, and sometimes it makes her want to deck him in the face. Sometimes it makes her want to deck herself in the face.

_**You can have Manhattan, the one we used to share.**_

_**The one where we were laughing and, drunk on just being there.**_

_**Hang on to the reverie, could you do that for me?**_

_**Cause I'm just too sad to.**_

_**You can have Manhattan, cause I can't have you.**_

When he moved, he moved six blocks from her. It was nice, having her best friend in walking distance. It made getting that drink after work that they never used to actually get, a lot easier. Sometimes it made her feel guilty though, because she felt like he should be home calling his kids or doing something else Catholic that didn't feel so sinful. But sometimes she just enjoyed her best friend. And sometimes she waited for the other shoe to drop because it was all just too damn good to be true.

_**And so it goes, one foot after the other, til black and white begins to color in.**_

_**And I know, that holding us in place is simply fear, of what's already changed.**_

It shifted one day. It shifted and everything fell the hell apart. Her world spun around and knocked its self-off its axis, and everything started to hurt. He corned her in the locker room one day because she had been acting snippy and bitchy towards him all day and he 'wanted to know why, damn it.' She had no idea what to tell him. She knew why, and it was 5'2, tiny, blonde, so severely her partner's type that she couldn't take it, and had just been here to have lunch with him. He started naming all these things, all these things he thought it could be, asking her what he did wrong cause he was sick and damn tired of her attitude and he, oh so very Elliot like, wanted to fix what he wronged. She couldn't get the words to come out of her mouth quick enough to tell him before he guessed. She doesn't think she's ever looked so shocked or horrified in an unwork related social setting, ever. He saw the surprise flit onto her face, but he saw the guilt too. He knew he was right and it pissed her off and terrified her at the same time. She was busted and she had no way out, she was suffocating.

He tilted his head and squinted his eyes and did that thing he does when he's got her in his hands and he knows it, and he backed her further against the locker she was standing in front of when he busted in behind her.

"It's Amanda, isn't it?" He asked her, tilting his head even further, and raising his signature eyebrow.

"No, Elliot, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"No."

"Don't lie to me, Olivia." She doesn't think she ever remembers his voice going that low. He takes two more steps, then makes another shuffle.

"What's so wrong with her, huh?"

"Nothing, El. Not a damn thing."

"No really, tell me. Is it cause she's happy and not so damn cynical all the damn time? Because she _doesn't_ think the whole damn worlds so dark?"

"Talk about calling the damn kettle black." She mumbled.

"Or is it because she's with me?" Revise that earlier statement about a surprised look. This one takes the cake.

"You literally have to be kidding me."

"Yeah, Liv. Do I though?"

He's close enough now that she's pressed so hard against the locker that she can feel the combination lock digging into her ass.

But then he floors her again.

His hands come up beside her, one on each side of her head, and he leans in.

"Are you really that jealous? Or is there more?" Eyes squinting again.

Silence. She can hardly hear herself think above her heart beating so loud, let alone speak.

"Don't tell me it's because you always thought it would be you?" Head tilting again. He's got her now and she can see he knows it.

"You always thought you'd be my rebound."

Confusion, nervousness, hurt, fear. All swirling around in her head so fast she could hardly stand. She didn't know what to do, how to move, how to get away from him. How to bail before he saw through her last little bit of reverence she had left.

He locked eyes with her and she felt him slowly start to shift. The he was gone, standing a good 5 inches back from her. He started shaking his head and moving further away from her. Pulling a signature move and running his hand up over his face and back down the back of his head a few times.

"Un uh. I love you too damn much for that, Liv. Woulda thought you'd known better."

Her breath caught in her throat for a second, and she lost all ability to think at all, but when her cognizance returned to her, her brain grasped what he must mean. And she understood. Or so she thought.

"I love you too, El. But-"

"No."

"What?'

"No. I don't think you get it, Olivia."

"Sure I do, it's just-"

"No you don't." He moves back toward her and slams his hands back up beside her.

"Damn it, I'm in love with you Olivia and I don't know why the hell you refuse to fucking see that. But I'm tired of it. I'm tired of waiting for you to get it, or for you to get over the damn guilt I know you're feeling or to finally stop dancing around it and get to the fucking point."

"I waited because I know you're the runner and I wasn't going to scare off the only chance I might ever have but I got tired of waiting, Liv. I got tired of waiting so when Amanda asked for my number I thought what the hell, what could it hurt? But apparently I should have just told her that yes I was available, but no she couldn't have my number because I'm in love with my partner who refuses to acknowledge what's there between us. I don't really know, Liv. But I do know that I'm still tired of waiting and I'm not gonna wait anymore."

"So here's your chance now. Run." He stood back and opened up his arms, offering me an opening out. I didn't take it. Instead I just stood there looking dumb founded and confused. Maybe a little in love, too.

I guess my silence and my stillness gave him the answer he needed, because then he had me pressed hard against the locker again and his face was in front mine and his eyes were locking with mine and his head was leaning in closer, and closer, and closer, and my heart was beating faster, and faster, and faster, then he was kissing me. Passionate and fast and hard and wonderful and I don't think another kiss like that with anyone one else out there could ever exist.

_**You can have Manhattan, I'll settle for the beach.**_

_**And sunsets facing westward, with sand beneath my feet.**_

_**I'll wish this way, this missing of days, when I was one half of two.**_

_**You can have Manhattan, cause I can't have you.**_

Thinking back on that day, it makes it twice as hard leaving, and it makes it twice as easy. Never really definite, always somewhere in between there but with and undertone of gone. Like them, partners, and friends, but oh so much more. Something that started in her heart and that she could never quite put a label on. Something that pushed her and pulled her, rose her up and knocked her back down again. This ever persistent tugging at her heart that made he want to jump in the Hudson, just to take a swim sometimes. Her plan all along was to leave it all behind, forget about it, every single thing about it, about them, about all the hurt and love and anger and passion and just create this wonderful, or at least vaguely satisfying life that had nothing to do with, and nothing for the old one.

Of course though, that's not how it happened. She really should have known better though, she's smarter than that.

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Okay, I know, I know. I took _way _too long. But in my typical me fashion, I fell a little behind in school. And by a little I literally mean two essays and a quiz. But in my other truest form, I procrastinated my butt off about it until I couldn't procrastinate anymore. Aka if I didn't turn it in then it wouldn't receive any credit at all. Oh, I'm just such a good example. Anyway, as I mentioned before, this is all whim of my mind, so nothings pre planned, which whereas usually I pre plan at least a little. So bear with me y'all.

But for the most part I'm pretty okay with where it's going. But once again, just keep in minds since I'm just sort of writing these and then posting them all in one night, two at the most, they're not beta-ed and probably won't be. So no chopping my head off for not so obvious mistakes. Or, really let's be honest here, really obvious mistakes. But anyhow, now that I've managed to ramble on excessively, again, here's Chp. two. Enjoy!

R&amp;R Baes, it's always appreciated.

Disclaimer: Yeah right.

Listening to: Ring of Fire- Johnny and June. (Yes I credit June too, she wrote it for him after all.)

* * *

They slept together that night. Hot and fast and heavy, everything she always thought it would be. With all the regret just moments after it ended, that she always knew would come.

It didn't happen right way, they both went home, to separate homes first. He kissed her, and he kissed her, and he kissed her in that locker room. But then Fin, of all people, busted in. Quick reflexes saved their asses so big that day, she's never been more thankful. She hauled ass out of there, grabbed her crap and made her way home literally as fast as she could manage. She actually took a cab, which never, ever happens. She always walks or takes the subway, because paying three times the amount to take a cab just seemed stupid. She didn't live _that_ far away. She did have that car, her lovely I'm not even midlife- midlife crisis. But she never drove that damn thing anyway.

But it wasn't long after she got home, changed into her sweats, and cracked open a brand new bottle of wine, that his fist was pounding on her door. She knew, the moment she heard it, it was him. 12 years and one of the loudest, most ridiculously distinct knocks she ever heard, and their absurd, abnormal, always in-sync connection that they've always seemed to have, how could she not?

Her hearts hardly ever raced so fast, but she made sure to keep herself nonchalant. She flung the door open, wine glass still in hand, and turned around to make her way back to the couch. No 'Hi", no 'Hello', no 'Hey partner, here to do that thing we've been trying to avoid for 12 years?'. Just let him in and walked away, like her heart wasn't about to thump right out of her chest and she wasn't about to throw up all over her living room floor.

He didn't waste much time though. At all.

She made it to the couch, sat down, pulled one of her legs up on the couch with her, and was pulled right back up. He pulled her flush against him, took her wine glass out of her hand and set it on her coffee table, all the while his eyes had one of the most lust filled looks she's ever seen in them. Then he kissed her. Hard, leaving no space for misinterpretation, no doubt in her mind, not like much had been there to start with, but anyway.

He backed himself out away from the couch, spun them around, and backed her towards her bedroom. Sometimes, when it's one of those days where she wants to blame just him, she conjures it up in her mind that he never gave her the chance to say no. But of course he did, he's Elliot. She knew what he was doing when he pulled her up off the couch, she could have pulled away then. He stopped them, just before the back of her knees hit the bed, and gave her the most intimate look she's ever seen come out of the man. He just looked like he loved her so, all the adoration seeping out of him, all the while she could still see the lust festering there. She could have told him no, or to wait, and not returned the look then. And then he asked her, "Are you sure, Liv." just before he entered her for the very first time and she knows exactly what came of her mouth, "Yes.".

Her heart still aches when she thinks about the moments following it all. She battled with herself for a while, whether she should let him stay, just for tonight, and then she could really hate herself tomorrow, or if she should just kick him out now, get it over with. Not have to ache when she wakes up to him in the morning, barely conscious, then has to watch him leave.

But ultimately, her panic won out. She turned her head to him, but she wouldn't look him in the eye, and told him just above a whisper, "You should go."

She chances a glance up at him from the spot of his sheet clad thigh she'd been staring at, and she sees his heart break. But she sees the objection come up, too.

He catches her eye, the best she will let him, and he asks her, nice and strong and solid and a little loud too, "Why?"

She tells him that he can't stay, that he just can't stay. That it's best if he just goes. But he's not buying it. They both end up out of bed, she keeps the sheet pulled around her and he pulls his boxers on. She keeps trying to repeat herself, he can't stay, he can't stay, he has to go, he has to go, he has to go _now_, in the midst of him trying to argue his own point back. That he's not just gonna run out, right after having sex with her. She's his partner and there's no way in hell he's gonna treat her like she's that cheap. But that's what she keeps trying to argue back to him, that he's her partner and that's literally entirely it, and that it doesn't matter, because she's kicking him out, she's making the decision, so it's okay.

He starts to argue back that it's not okay, but then he apparently just catches the end of what she said earlier. "Why _now_, Liv. Why not tomorrow?"

And she's the most honest with him she thinks she's ever been, "Because my heart can't take it. This is easier."

"Liv…" he tries to whisper, but she can't. She just can't.

"No, El. Just… just… _go."_

She expected there to be yelling, she expected him to argue back, to object, but he didn't. He just put his clothes on, gave her one last, terrifyingly heartbreaking look, and walked out of her bedroom. He did slam the door though, almost like the last little ending note on this terrible, heart crushing, love soaring, and falling, falling, falling, song of theirs. They weren't ever them again. And she still hates herself for telling him to leave.

* * *

She left three days later.

She told Capitan that she needed a change, and wanted to request a transfer. He asked her where and she wasn't surprised in the least when he questioned her about it.

"California." She told him. She knew he had connections over there.

The look on his face gave everything away. And she can't blame him. Her, Olivia Benson, New Yorker to the core whose heart belonged in Manhattan, wanted to take off for not only the West Coast, polar opposite of the East, but California. The most opposite of New York you could find without jetting off to another country. But she realizes too, just how cliché it is. Want to avoid New York? Want to forget all about it? Well then, California really is the perfect choice. The most predictable too.

But of course, she didn't tell him why she was _really_ leaving, so shock was the most logical choice. She thinks now though, that it really probably only took him about three seconds after that to confirm what he probably had in his head when she told him she wanted to leave, anyway. She didn't need a change, she needed to get her heart and her head away from her partner. For her sake, and his.

He asked her if she was sure, about a hundred times. She told him 'yes' and 'that it was what she felt she needed to do' about 60 of those times. The rest of the time she just gave him a look that told him that if he didn't stop asking her she was either going to lose her placidity or have to go running out of that office in an emotional frenzy. He stopped, but hesitantly.

He never asked her not to go, never outright anyway. Just gave her every look he had in him, and pulled out puppy dog eyes that she didn't think Capitan Donald Cragen was capable of. He made sure she knew how he felt, and she still misses him every single day, to this day. After all, that man was her father, the one she leaned on and emotionally let herself rely on, for 12 years. They've kept in touch a lot, because she refused to let herself stray from a man who has done so much and meant so much to her, but still, it's a big loss.

Speaking of emotionally relying on someone, her partner.

She tried to stick it out, she didn't want to go. Not at first anyway, but in the end, every time she looked at him, or heard his voice, or even heard someone say his name, she pictured him in her bed. Next to her, under her, on top of her. She couldn't get the images out of her head. It made her feel so guilty, and it made her want more. But then she'd see his face when she told him to leave, and that look he gave when he finally admitted defeat and was walking out her bedroom door. That one hurt more than anything, and it so profoundly affected her more that the images of them together, that she just couldn't handle it.

She didn't tell him before hand, matter of a fact, she didn't tell him at all. She's sure it was probably Cap., or munch, or Fin the next day. And she knows that was the lowest blow and she feels like a complete jackass for it. She knows that up and leaving is a sore spot for them, especially for him. She's done it too many times, but it's like it's this compulsion that she just can't stop. But maybe she's just a coward and can't face him, because she knows that all he would have to do would be to tell her to stay, and she damn well would. Those icy blues could get her every time.

* * *

She didn't stay in California long. She transferred to their SVU because she knew in her heart that was the work she was most meant to do, and she honestly couldn't see herself doing anything else. She didn't want to see herself doing anything else, either.

But it didn't take long, before she realized that without her partner, the job just wasn't the same. No matter how hard she tried to find other coping mechanisms, she just kept realizing that without her partner to lean on, this job was much more draining that ever before. She did have a partner, and don't get her wrong he was great. But that's just it, that's all he was, her partner. Not a friend, not a confidant, not a kindred yet completely opposite soul that save for very rare occasions, she could always count on being there. He wasn't Elliot.

She picked up and moved to Utah six weeks after getting to California. Just packed all of her crap in that damn midlife crisis of hers, paid a moving company to move the big things, again, and left. Of course, she really should have had to put in her two weeks. But, she thinks, when you're former Captain/father figure is Donald Cragen, strings can be pulled. And, she's pretty sure they all saw it coming anyway. She never really did get comfortable there. Hell, she thinks she only unpacked four boxes.

She feels bad about just up and leaving that squad, because they were all good people and her being there was still in that newness period and they didn't deserve to be left hanging and have to be left with whatever new replacement that IAB sent in. But she realized that if she could leave her family back at her old squad hanging like that, people that she worked for at the minimum 11 years, people who a brand new replacement was going to affect much more, than she could do it to people she barely knew. Besides, the sun hurt her eyes. California was just too damn bright. She missed states where it rained more, and where they knew what it was like to have dreary days more than 6 days out of the year. And be damned if she didn't want to admit it, she missed the cold.

Utah was more her, but still far enough from New York that she felt like she was still in her effectively avoiding her partner comfort zone. And it made it easier to guard her heart, and to guard his from her.

* * *

She decided that it wasn't going to matter where she went, or what changes she made, being a cop just wasn't going to work anymore. She told herself, all those years ago when she got word from her Captain about moving to SVU that if there ever came a day, where she felt like she couldn't effectively give every bit of her career self to victims and cases and justice, then she'd leave. Move on and find something else to do, something else her heart was content with. What she didn't know then though, was that she'd end up giving all of herself, save for that little part that was reserved for her partner, to victims and cases and justice. Not just the side set aside for her career. She didn't know either that the only thing that her heart was ever going to want her to do, was be a cop. More specifically, one at SVU.

But that's exactly how she felt when she left California, that she couldn't give all of herself to the victims. And being a cop without him, just felt wrong. And she hates herself for that. He wasn't what made her become a cop, and he wasn't what made her enter SVU, but from the moment she met him, everything changed. Her heart included. And too, there were other variables to take into consideration now.

So she retired. Took her pension and ran. Felt strange, gut wrenchingly weird, for about the first... year. Nothing felt right and she felt empty. But she had been a cop for so damn long, and given so damn much of herself, that it only made sense that it did. She did nothing for about a month. She just couldn't bring herself to find a different job, to be something that wasn't a cop just yet. So she lived off her pension in her typical Olivia fashion, not buying much more than she needed but being picky and specific about the things she did buy, and looked around a little, casually, for something else.

Then one day she found it. It's simple and easy and non-committal, compared to being a cop, but it works. She works for an Account money managing firm, she's a consultant. Essentially she helps tell companies accounting departments how to spend and delegate their money if their having trouble doing so. It's boring, and it isn't dangerous in the slightest, but it works and pays well and she's happy. She doesn't mind working with money and she likes getting to work with computers a little more again, and she likes the office she works in and her coworkers. And her boss isn't a jackass, so that's nice. And it's got nine to five, literally, hours. Ridiculously strange to her, still, but fine. She likes getting to have more than four hours of sleep, though admittedly she's still stays up until at least 12 and is usually back up at six, seven at the latest to go run in the park a block over. It's in her system though, she can't shake it. But having the option for eight hours is nice.

She bought a house too, can you say culture shock. She now had over 2,000 square feet to work with. Which, though her apartment was pretty damn big for the city, its huge compared to what she's used to. A New Yorker, always a city girl, trying to adjust to a house, that she owns... hilarious.

She painted and bought furniture and a porch swing and a kitchen table, that's probably the size of her bathroom in New York, and she likes it.

And then, six months into living there, eight and a half months after leaving Manhattan, and just after she bought her nice house and decided that she would after all stay at her job and not have a major freak out and bail back for New York, she met someone.


	3. Chapter 3

So for any of you that guessed what's happening next, who she met, bravo. Any of you that guessed the pretty much only other obvious direction this could have went, don't worry, that's what I had originally intended. But then I ended the last chapter and that just didn't feel right, so this did. This was always intended anyway, just not right this second, at the begging of this chapter. Maybe by the next one, I don't know, just not this soon. But I just scrapped that original idea and decided this is what I wanted the story to be anyhow, so here ya go. Enjoy, baes.

Oh, and one more thing. So I noticed I seem to updating this about once a month, like literally almost to the day, and that's totally not how it was intended. School has just been one giant pain in the you know what, so I've literally either been preoccupied with mounds of work and crap, or too tired to even tell you my ABCs, let alone write. Or I'll get it written without passing out face first and crushing my laptop, and then I'll forget about posting it and then, oh look it's like 6 days later and it's almost been a month since the last chapter I've gotta post it. But our last day is June 3rd (which if you're a Gilmore Girls fan you'd understand why that is completely painful), and I graduate June 7th. So from then after I should have literally no reason to be preoccupied, so updates should get closer together.

Disclaimer: In my friggin dreams.

R&amp;R Cheries, always appreciated.

* * *

She met her little girl.

Sweet, wonderful, everything she's ever imagined. Everything she's ever wanted. And everything, that she long ago, save for her dreams, convinced herself she'd never have.

She found out after she left, about three weeks after she left, thought about calling him, didn't. Felt like, will always feel like, the worst person in the world for not. She knew, knows, that if she had, he would've tracked her down, told Cap. where he was going, and been on the next plane to her before she could take off for anywhere. Biggest regret that takes telling him to leave that mornings spot? Not telling him, literally the day she found out.

She told Cap. Three weeks after she found out. He yelled at her, middle named her, told her she was in hot ass water for waiting three damn weeks to tell him. Six weeks in was just too long for him to be in the dark about what was practically his own flesh and blood, damn it, he'd told her. She cried, he asked her if she wanted him to come out, because he would. Fly out on the next plane he could get, just tell IAB it was a family emergency, let them deal with the fact that they knew he had no family. Make an excuse and not tell Elliot, because of course, he knew. He always knew. And he'd never tell him if she didn't want him to. Which of course, because he knew her like nothing else, she wouldn't. She told him not to, of course. She doesn't know why, why she _really_ wouldn't let him come. She knew it would raise too many suspicions, that there was no way El would let him get out of there without telling him, and quite frankly probably making him take him with him. Fin would be immediately concerned, which would set off Munch's alarms, questions upon questions would just keep coming in, she'd wake up one morning to not just have her support system standing on her doorstep, but to have half of that support system be the father of the baby who she'd purposely neglected to call. Too dramatic, she didn't want to trouble him, wasn't worth it she'd be alright. She knows that there's a deeper reason, deeper reasons, though. But that's for another day.

That wasn't the reason she felt like she couldn't give all of herself to the victims anymore though. She felt like, always felt like when she dreamt about it happening, that she could still give enough. But she was just too tired. Too worn down, too overworked, too done, especially without her partner. Which or course, carrying her partners baby only made more prominent in her mind.

So she did what she did and moved to Utah and stopped being a cop and decided to be as relatively normal as possible. Of course, she wasn't born to be normal, so she never will. But she thinks she's come pretty close.

She was born on a Saturday morning, 6:15 a.m on the dot. Early bird, just like her Momma. Still is, too. Which was just fantastic in those early months where she was up every 2 and half hours to feed her, essentially making her a walking zombie. Sleep depravation; thought she knew it like the back of her hand, being a cop and all, but boy was she wrong.

It was a sunny morning, sun high and bright in the clouds, and the only thing she kept thinking was maybe the fact that her little girl was being brought into the world on such a bright day, meant that she'd get to have a bright, happy life. Unlike her Mother's, up until that point, grey, dreary, awful. It gave her hope, optimism.

She was 6 pounds, 5 ounces. Tiny. So, so tiny. And perfect. Perfect brown hair, beautiful long limbs, 21 inches long, she was. Tall, like her Momma, a nurse had said. Long fingers and toes, ten of each, Liv had counted, twice. The nurses just smiled at her, told her she looked like a new Mom in love and she doesn't know if she's ever heard anything more true. Up until her birth, she'd felt distant from her. Wondered here and there if she should be feeling more connected than she was, all through out her pregnancy. Now don't get her wrong, she felt connected at times. So connected to this tiny little thing sometimes, that she thought she might burst. But she just felt like she should feel _more._ This sweet, perfect, perfect thing was part her and part El. She was all she ever wanted and believed she might never get. She was what she'd waited on for so many years, why didn't she feel more in touch? She was terrified that this little girl would come out of her, and nothing would change. She'd feel the same. She wonders now though, if that maybe she was just still terrified, that if she had just waited so long, had it taken from her so many times, that maybe it just didn't feel real until she was here. That she still felt just out of reach all along, until she was cradling this beautiful thing on her chest, and giving the nurses a name. Nora Eloise Benson.

She considered Stabler. She really, really did. But she didn't know when she'd tell El, how she'd tell El, if she'd ever tell El. She didn't know if Nora would ever know El, and vise versa. She didn't know what life would hold 5 minutes from now, let alone ten years. So she stuck with the safe option. And besides, she's Olivia Benson, she doesn't believe in all that crap about it being morally wrong for a child not to have a Fathers name, and it being dishonoring to the Father for them not to. Besides, she clearly wasn't too good at moral reasoning. After all, she had a kid with her partner, and then didn't tell him. So she decided to be her strong willed, independent self, and name her child after herself. They're Bensons damn it, and that's the way she wanted it. She had to admit though, when picking her name, she did consider, heavily, what El would think of it. And she remembered one day, and she'll never know why it sticks out in her mind so much, a Vic's sister's name being Eloise, and El making some half assed while flipping trough a file and scarfing down Chinese food upstairs on that old, disgusting, gross couch, how pretty of a name it was. Apparently her brain cataloged and recessed it for the very moment when naming her and Elliot's daughter would come. But besides, she thinks it's pretty too, so to hell with her brain, she can name her that for her own reasons. Damn it.

Cap. flew out when she was born. The day she was born, matter a fact. Got to the hospital at three p.m. Met his granddaughter at 3:11, precisely. Olivia checked, documented it in her brain, cataloged it and stored it for later, to write it in the ridiculous, pink, obscene with little baby duckies baby book she had bought her randomly one day after work. The damn thing just kept mocking her every time she walked by it in the store. She felt stupid buying it, ducked her head the entire time at the register. But she wanted to remember everything, or at least everything she remembered to write down. She heard those things can kinda end up being useless and end up being half filled out and you don't realize it or care until the kids 15. And she realized too, once she left the store, that she had the golden ticket, that beautiful little girl hanging out in her stomach. She had the _right_ now, it _wasn't_ weird. A mind set that took her a long time to get used to.

He walked in, took off his sunglasses like he was hot shit, and demanded she give him that little girl. So she handed her over, sat back on her bed, and was fine. For like, five seconds. Until Don called her his granddaughter and that he, and her mommy, had waited a long time to meet her. She lost it then, out right sobbed. Don look up for about three seconds, long enough to just glance, cause apparently she took him off guard, but then he looked back down. Apparently its perfectly normal for new moms to randomly and openly sob. Crazy hormones, or something. She experienced that when she was pregnant, the day she both the baby book actually. Went home, sat down in the one peirce of furniture in the unpainted nursery. An old, gorgeous, surprisingly comfortable rocking chair she had come across one day, one block over at a garage sale, on her cool down walk from her run, asked them if they could hold for 5 minutes, went home, got the money, then convinced one of the neighbor guys to carry it home for her, cause you know, she was pregnant and all and that was literally all she had to say and his wife smacked him on the arm and told him not to be an ass, got him to carry upstairs, too, and cried. She wasn't prepared for it to keep happening after the baby was here though. Even though she'd read every article, blog, book, watched every video and show possible to know as much as possible about pregnancy, life after baby, and baby. She was just a mess, she guesses. Hormones, blaming it all on hormones.

He stayed for three days, stayed at her place for the two days she was in the hospital, told her he wasn't forking over money for a hotel now that she had this big fancy house, and stayed the first night with her. Which was nice, she had assumed she would be alone. Most people have their spouses with them, and at the least their parents come to stay a few days. None of which she had. Until Don showed up, and imparted his wisdom on her. Hogged her daughter, too. She didn't mind though, not one damn bit. Reveled in it, actually.

He went back to New York on Tuesday morning, but not before he made sure to tell her how fucked up it was that Elliot didn't know. And that he'd always be there to defend her, go to bat for her, but not to forget that Elliot was practically his kid too, and that he couldn't just see one side in this. He told her to call him, to call Elliot, when she felt like she was ready. She argued she might never be ready, he told her that was bull. That one day she was gonna wake up and see just how much that little girl's face looked like her father's, and ache for him to see her. To know her, to experience her wonder, her beauty, just how incredible she was. And she was gonna miss him too, even more than before the baby, even more than now. One day she'd want him to know his little girl, his little girl that was part the one he loved, but could never catch. She told him he was too damn sentimental, and that she'd call him to make sure his plane didn't drop over Kansas somewhere.

But Cap. was right, of course. And one day, she did miss him, one day she did wake up and realize just how much her daughter looked like Elliot, and one day, she did call him.

* * *

So, I know Cap is a little more, I don't know, eccentric, in this story than he ever was on the show. And I know I seem to be focusing more on Liv and Cap and their relationship than anyone else or her relationship with anyone else, but I promise that's gonna change soon. That's just kinda how it came out, since I'm not planning these out beforehand. And I know that their relationship seems to be a little more intense and abrasive than we ever got to actually _see_ on the show, but that's just how it worked out. And hey, it's fan_fiction, _right? Meaning I get to write it and see it how ever I want. And I know I'm emphasizing the father daughter relationship a lot, but then again it was mentioned, at least in the sense of El and Liv practically being his kids, that Liv was his daughter, more than once over the years. And come on, you cant watch the show and not get assaulted with that feeling. I mean, look how many damn times poor Don willingly risked his career for these two idiots. But anyhow, just wanted to get that out of the way before someone noticed and had a cow. So, yeah. Once again per my usual self, way too long AN over now.

Next up: Elliot.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: **I _promise_ you, I didn't abandon y'all on purpose. A whole lot of crap happened. A family, crisis, if you will, a gone to hell laptop, and just, well, crap. I'll try to catch you guys up as much as possible next chapter, which is already pretty much finished, by the way. If any of y'all are still hanging in there, bless you. You're incredible.

R&amp;R babes, it's always appriciated.

Disclaimer: Yeah. Freaking. Right.

* * *

She called him. 6 weeks after she was born. He answered, she hung up. She figured he probably knew it was her. Porbably sensed it. He's always had that freakish sixth sense like that when it came to her. Bastard.

She wanted to tell him. Hell, she just wanted to talk to him. But her brain, or her heart, or her gut, she doesn't know, wouldn't let her. He picked up and she heard his voice for the first time since the morning she left, after she talked to the Captain, and went home to take a personal day, and she felt her heart slam against her chest wall. God, she missed him. She opened her mouth, he probably heard her take in a breath, then she lost every bit of courage she had and hit the call end button. Then she proceeded to throw the phone down on the couch, back away to all the way across the room, and put her shaking over her mouth. She felt stupid.

She felt like the biggest moron on the planet. The biggest coward. This was Elliot, no matter how much he made her heart race sometimes, she's felt irrevocably since day one, that she could tell the man anything. There have been times, Sealview, all about Oregon, why she really left for Computer Crimes, where she wanted nothing more in the world but not to tell him. But she's never felt like she _couldn't_. And when he picked up that phone, and she froze, she truly felt like she coudn't. And she knows it's all her fault. She knows that this is all because of her. She knows that she caused all of this, that she's the bad guy and she always will be, and that she is the worst person in the world because she didn't tell him. She's never denied otherwise. And she never will. That doesn't make it any easier, though. And it doesn't make her heart hurt any less.

He called her back. And yes, he knew it was her. He left a message and it took her a good 10 minuets to get up the courage to listen to it. He wasn't mean, didn't sound agiated, or confused for that matter, he just souned resounded. And a little surprised. Maybe sad, too?Or maybe he was mad and maybe he was agiated, and she just couldn't read him anymore.

He asked of her somthing she didin't know if she could do, and she felt herself panick and her heart rate pick up because she did want this. She wanted this opportunity, she wanted this chance. She wanted to reach back out.

She hears his voice play over, and over in her head for weeks. She just can't seem to shake him...

_"Liv, look, I know this is probably hard. And, you probably panicked. But please, Olivia, just... Call me back. Cause I'm still here, I'll always be here. I've always been here. Okay? Just... Please."_

Her heart still shutters when she thinks about the deep breath he took between _"just"_,and _"call me back"_.It sinks a little further, too. Because she never did call him back.

She knows this is assinine. She knows it's assinine that she can't call the man back but their daughter, _his_ daughter, is just upstairs. Sleeping soundly while her mother watches her peaceful face and content form on the monitor. The daughter that he has no idea about.

She does though, text him. Seven little words.

_"__**Not now El, but soon. I promise."**_

Soon, turned into four years.

* * *

Six days before Nora's fourth birthday, she's getting her ready to head out the door to preschool, and her to work. It's raining, conveintly, or was at least, and will again, so she puts Nora's rain boots on her, and stuffs her tennis shoes in her backpack, and ushers her out the door, because they've already been late 3 times this month and she doesn't want to be that person that can't even get her one four year old and herself out the door on time. Apparently, they're in a funk. Great.

She doesn't though, anticipate what she sees when she steps out her door. In all her hurried panick, and well, resnetment because let's be honest, they're gonna be late again, to get out the door, lock it, and make it to the damn car before it rains again, and make at least an attempt at getting there on time, she doesn't see it. Nora notices it first, this lovely new distraction of thiers, before she does, and she only notices it when Nora stops dead in front of her, before she even reaches the poorch steps. Elliot.

Her heart, _**stops.**_

He's here. Standing on the sidewalk leading from the sidwalk by the street, to the poorch. She swears she's seeing things because this literally isn't her life. And in those six seconds between Nora's discovery, and her mind snapping back again, she's suddenly back in New York coming out of Cragen's office and making eye contact with him. She'll sware until the day she dies that he _knew_. He knew something was wrong. She wasn't fooling him and it wasn't just the fact that she'd been under neith him 3 days before. She feels that same feeling she felt then, panick, axeinity, guilt, the urge to run to him, the urge to run the oppisite direction, hurt, fear. His eyes flash back to her from where they had been on Nora and shesees it, he _**knows**_. He just, he... _**knows. **_And the panick raises to a level she's never felt in a situation without a gun or a vitctim in danger.

She doesn't know what to do. Nora is needs to be at day care in ten minuets, and she has to be to work in 20. Yet, the only man she's ever loved, the unassuming, or so she thought, father of her child, and the man she abandonded 3 days after doing the thing her heart had been acheing to do for 12 years, the man that was her bestfriend, for _**12 years**_, the one person besides her daughter that meant more to her than her damn brain could even comprehend, was standing on her sidewalk. Wet.

She gets the idea that he's been standing here for a while. She sees hurt, and about 12 million other things flash through his blue eyes, those blue eyes, that she prayed, prayed, and prayed to a damn God she wasn't even sure she believed in, her daughter wouldn't inherit. And even though science dictates that the likelyhood of that was small, very small, apparently her daughter decided to defy science. Because damned if every time she looked down at the beuatiful little face, Elliot and his crulean blues weren't looking back at her. Then she sees that vain in his neck, and then the one in his forehead, twitch. And she knows he's exersizing the little bit of self control he did have.

She bends down an whispers to Nora "Hey, how about a lazy day?"

She's had only a few of these, when they were having a particuarlly had time, but Nora knows them well. They're her favourite.

"Yeah." She whispers back, timid. She knows she doesn't understand exatcly what's going on here, but she doesn't either. But she figures if she can distract her enough, and she can figure out what the hell to do, she'll figure out something to tell her to make her understand. She hopes.

"Kay, how about you go back inside, and go pick out some pajamas, and Mommy will come in and make you some mac n' cheese in a second. Okay?"

"Kay." Again, so timid. It scares her, but she figures she just needs some time.

She hurries off into the house, dropping the back pack by the hooks inside the door, and starting up the stairs. Knowing her daughter, she knows better. "Boots." She yells back, never once taking her eyes off of Elliot. She hears little feet run back down the few stairs she made it, thunk her boots off, and run back up.

"How?" The first words out of her mouth to this man since the day she left New York.

"Fin." He says.

God, she should have known.

She nods her head, takes a deep breath, and he starts toward her.

He stops maybe two feet in front of her and that panicked feeling from before is back.

"Why?" Apparently their more monosyllble than normal now.

"I..." She doesn't know what to say, but that's okay because he's got more.

Apparently being able to form full senteces now, he says "12 years, Olivia. And nothing inside of you told you this was wrong?"

She scoffs at him, and she thinks fleetingly that she missed scoffing at him.

"Nothing inside of me, Elliot? _**Everything**_ inside of me. Don't assume goddamnit, because you haven't been here the last four years and you _don't_ know."

"And whose fault is that?"

Her eyes slip shut and she feels her heart trying to jump up her throat.

"I've got to get back inside. She'll be coming back down any second." Half ass excussing her way out of it, she figures it's the best plan of attack.

He nods his head and looks away, swallows hard, seems to compose himself, then looks back at her.

She turns to head back inside, feeling his eyes on her every second. She leaves the door open behind her when she steps over the threshold, figuring he'd follow her.

He did.

* * *

**Next up: Quality family time.**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: **So, buckle up, cause here we go. Now the first thing I'll address is the whole 'laptop shot to hell thing'. It just kind of, gave up on life. It was about 5 years old, and wasn't very expensive to start with, I just needed something for school, it had the capacity and such that I needed, and I liked it. So it was bound to happen. But anyway, that was pretty recent, and the issue's been resolved, for now at least. But just shortly after I graduated, we had a bit of a, uh, family crisis. Now I'm not going to go into details, because it's not all my story to tell, but let's just say that nothing was right. Or normal, or even functioning very well. It just sort of fell apart. Like slowly, and then all at one. Hey, a TFIOS reference. Hollar. But anyway, I'm hoping things are going to be right side up again here soon, and they're already better, so here's to no more crisis!

But I just wanna thank y'all for sticking around and all your support. You're incredible.

I love y'all, so much. I really do. And it's been killing me to not be able to update. I'm really invested in this story, as I usually am with anything that actually makes it out of my head and into writing, and I'm excited to continue it. Still no pre-writes, excluding this chapter, because I had four already written, and in the mist of waiting to be able to post it, I wrote this one. Still no set plan, just an idea line, track, path like thing in my head. But as soon as this one wraps up, which I have no idea when that'll be, I'm intending to update some of my other multi chap stories, that I have totally legit abandoned, and then I have a couple of drabbles, or drabbles turned multi chapter, story of my life, that I'd like to post. And some, surprise, seriously, surprise, aren't even EO. I know right, who am I?!

Anyway, I've babbled on long enough now.

R&amp;R my lovelies, it's always appreciated.

Disclaimer: Ha.

Listening to: **What'll Keep Me Out Of Heaven, Brandy Clark**. And quite frankly, the entire 12 Stories album.

_**What'll keep me out of heave, will take me there tonight.**_

* * *

When she came back in she found Nora already changed, and sitting at the dining room table in the breakfast nook. She continued down the small hallway next to the stairs that stretched straight out from the front door to the kitchen. She passed Nora and walked around the other side of the counter, and when she turned back he was missing. She figured he made a right when they walked in, and made a detour to the living room. So she started the water for Nora's macaroni and cheese, gave Nora her tablet to play with, and made her way back there.

When she got to the door way of the living room, she noticed what he was doing. Pictures. He had picked one up from the mantle, it was one that she had taken of Nora on the first day of preschool. Out on their sidewalk, smiling big, in her rain coat and rain boots, with her almost-as-big-as-her backpack on. Nora was pretty tall, but even so she was so tiny that her toddler backpack nearly swallowed her. It was adorable. He was holding the frame in his hand, gripping it tightly. She could see the side of his face at the slight, turned sideways angle he was standing at. He was squinting his eyes and pursing his lips. She recognized that. It was what he did when he was upset.

She leaned back off of the door way frame, and stepped down off the little step there. When he heard her, his head snapped up. And his face changed quickly. He looked so hurt only seconds ago. Now, he looked angry. But she could still see the hurt lingering in his eyes. His quick change, put a mask on bit didn't quite work on her. She knew better.

Those blue, blue eyes, the same ones she has been looking into for four years, looked so different now. Then again, she's never seen him this hurt. This personally, whole heartedly hurt. And offended, and angry ,and upset, and shocked, and betrayed.

She felt like she could be sick.

"That was, uh, the first day of preschool. _She_ asked _me_ for a picture. I figured it was supposed to be the other way around, but it didn't matter because I was too busy crying to remember to take one. Guess it's a good thing she's a tiny genius, huh?" She huffed out a small laugh. She knew what she was doing, she was trying to deflect from the inevitable conversation she knew was coming.

"Well, I wouldn't know. Huh?"

Pain, right inside her heart.

"Listen, El, Im-"

"No."

"No?"

"No." He looked a little hurt again, but there was still anger there. So, so much anger.

"You don't get to try to bullshit me, Olivia. And I know that's exactly what you're doing. You don't get to try to come up with some half assed excuse that makes you look like less of a bad guy. You're not going to sugar coat this shit, I didn't drag my ass here all the way from New York for that. If that's all you've got, then save it."

"Then what did you come here for?"

"To see my _daughter_. Obviously."

"But not to let me explain."

He just gave her a skeptical look.

"Look, I know you're pissed, and you have every right to be, but just because you don't trust me, doesn't mean you get to jump to asshole conclusions every time I open my mouth. I may be the bad guy here, but you're the one acting unfairly."

Clearly, he thought she'd bow down to whatever request he had, given the situation, because he looked _shocked_. Apparently, he had forgotten who she was.

"Mom?" Tiny, timid, coming from the kitchen.

"Yeah, baby?"

"The water's doing that thingy."

She knew she meant boiling, so she gave him one more, 'God damn it don't you dare come in here at me like that' look, and made her way back to the kitchen.

He didn't bother to follow. She figured he was giving her some space, and trying to not approach Nora too quickly. She was grateful.

She stayed in the kitchen until Nora's macaroni was done, made a call to her boss and the daycare, and then she brought Nora, her macaroni, and the tablet to the living room. She asked Nora if she would watch some of 'her shows' as she liked to call them, and let Mommy talk to Mr. Elliot for a while.

Nora agreed, so she got her situated with the tablet for back up next to her on the couch, her little, tiny, lap table over her, a blanket, and her food. Then she flipped on the cartoons, and turned back for the kitchen.

She didn't wait to see if he was going to follow her, though she hoped, but she did notice that the entire time she was in that living room, he didn't take his off of Nora _once._

When she made it to the kitchen, she noticed he was behind her. She started for the sink to start the dishes from Nora's food, but she thought if she was asking of him to be fair, then it was the least that she could do.

So she turned back around to find him standing by the table. She took a deep breath, and went over to sit in one of the chairs. He sat down across from her, and she thought, just for a second that his resolve might be slipping. He looked like her Elliot, like a sweet, sweet man who was just hurt. And sad, and betrayed, and upset. But not so angry. Now, she doesn't blame him for being so angry, she'd expected nothing less. Hell, she'd be just as angry, if not angrier. She thought he was handling it pretty damn well. But it's just hard, to see the one person you've loved for nearly sixteen years, be so angry, because they were so hurt. And it all be because of you. He's been angry, he's been irate at her before, but she knows she's never hurt him this personally and this deeply.

"At the least, tell me what you're thinking."

He seemed to be off somewhere else there for a moment, and so he looks up at her from the table, eyes still wide, and says, "She looks just like you."

She makes a scoffing sound, because he's _insane_. That kid is him, in a tiny, few feet high, frame. Through, and through.

He looks up at her like she's nuts, and he's offended.

"She's you. Literally identically, Elliot. She even looks like you when she sleeps. The only thing she got from me is her inability to sleep past 7 a.m. Now when she was born, different story. But she just morphed into a little you."

Something there peaked his interest. And she wishes she knew what it was. Four years ago, she would have know what it was.

"What?"

He sort of just shakes his head and looks away. But she wants him to talk to her, not to shut her out. As painful as she knows it will be, this is her fault, so she wants to tell him anything and everything he wants to know about Nora.

"When she was born. I missed it, Olivia. I missed my daughter being _born_. I missed her open her eyes for the first time, I missed her first bath, I missed her first little sound, I missed her coming home from the hospital, I missed her first _cry._"

She can't help but think about little Eli, and missing them being born, that makes two. And pain, pain just sears right through her heart.

"I'm sorry."

He makes a sort of scoffing sound and looks down again.

"No, Elliot. You don't have to accept my apology, or even care that I'm apologizing,. But you don't get to tell me that I can't try to make something right that I made wrong. You don't have to accept it and let it be right again, but you can't tell me that I don't at least get to _try_."

He looked back up at her, but he still looked skeptical.

"Look, I know that this is awful. That what I did is _awful_. But please, if you want to get to know her, and know everything about her from a half an hour ago back, please, please don't stonewall me. You're here, that means you intend to know Nora. And that means that no matter how you feel about me, this is about her, and I'm, so god damn it unfortunately, your only source into that. She's four, she can't tell you what happened when she was six months old, but I _can_. I don't expect you to forgive me, or even care to speak to me if it doesn't concern her, or even be okay with me at all, but please don't shut me down all together when it comes to her. Don't stonewall me, and let us get through this so you can know her at full capacity."

He seemed to except that, so she went on. "Tell me what you want to know first."

"Birth vitals."

She nodded, and got up to pull something off of the bookshelf that sat behind him, just inside the kitchen. She knew what he was doing, he was cataloging. Starting from the begging, gathering as much information as possible, and then storing it. She was glad.

She handed the pink, with little baby duckies on it baby book to him. And as he was flipping through she told him. "6 pounds, 5 ounces, 21 inches long. 6:15 a.m. October 7th. It was a Saturday. Pretty, sunny. Good day to be born."

He seemed to be processing well, and had found the page with her vitals, and the very first picture taken of her. So she finished. "Nora Eloise Benson."

He smiled the faintest bit when she said that.

"You remembered, didn't you?" He said without even looking up.

"Yeah. I don't know why, but when I went to name her, that conversation stuck out in my mind. I figured, I hoped, you'd like it."

"I'd love her name no matter what it was. But, that one's especially nice." Still not looking up, but she could see his face had softened some. He was touched.

That made her happy, but that made her irrevocably sad, too. Because he shouldn't have to be touched that his daughter had a name he liked, he should have been there to name her too.

She felt like that was what this whole thing was going to be. Push, and shove. Give, and take.

"You were, alright?" God, still the sweetest man on the planet when you look hard enough.

"Yeah, yeah. I was good. And she was perfectly healthy. Still is. Don actually came a little while after I had her, so that was nice."

He looked up from the book then. "I knew it."

"What?"

"I mean, I knew he had to be going to see you. He wouldn't tell any of us, but especially me, where he was going. Just, taking a trip. Cragen doesn't take trips. I had no idea though that he was going to see you, _and_ our _daughter._"

Our daughter. That was the first time she had heard him say that and she nearly thought she'd pass out, right there on the table.

"He tried to come out when he found out I was pregnant. But I wouldn't let him."

She could see the hurt flash across his face, but it was momentary.

"So he did know."

"Yeah, I told him pretty early on."

"So about the time you decided not to tell me. I knew he knew something about something. I could tell. There was something he found out, but he sure as hell wasn't telling. Your little secret keeper did his job." With that he got up and headed for the french doors that lead to the backyard.

He stood there, hands in his pockets, and she could see his breath heaving. The way his shoulders were rising and falling, his back, up and down, up and down, so violently. He was even more upset.

"I take it Captain told Fin at one point?"

Still facing the doors, away from her. "Apparently, at some point he came out with it. Supposedly told Fin with the strictest orders not to tell anyone, _especially me_, but I guess Fin has a soft spot for me after all."

She hears the way he says '_especially me_' ring through in her head, over and over again.

"That or threatening to kill him in the locker room got him talking."

"Elliot." She says exasperated. God, poor Fin. She never realized what this may cause on him.

But apparently he wasn't listening. "I don't think you understand how it felt to hear those words come out of his mouth, Olivia. 'Olivia had a baby.' I thought I'd fucking choke on my own air. I asked him when. He wouldn't tell me. Another good shove against the locker got it out though. '4 years ago."

"God, Olivia. I thought for 3 seconds that maybe, just maybe. But mostly I felt _crushed_ because I thought, fuck, that's it." He was facing her now. She was crying.

"It's over. _I missed my chance._ She's gone, really fucking gone. She's moved on, is finally happy, found someone, and has a child. _Only come to fucking find out_. I knew it, the second I saw her face. I didn't bother to wait for Fin to answer me. Because as soon as I asked him I could see him panic. But as soon as I saw her face, I _knew_. I fucking felt it, in every inch of me. And the whole damn way here I didn't know what I wanted more. For her to be mine, and for you to have _never, fucking, told me_, or for you to be gone. For every-fucking thing I've wanted for the last 16 years to be gone. Or for the one person I've trusted and relied on more than any-fucking one, more than _my wife _to have not told be about our _child_. Now I think I would have rathered the other." He was nearly crying now too, but that was it. He was gone. Before she could say a word, he was down the hall and out the door. She waited a second, and then she wiped the tears off her cheeks, walked down and checked in on Nora, still oblivious, and then because she hadn't heard a car start, she held her breath and opened the door.

He was sitting on the porch swing, doubled over, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. And she thought, once again, she was going to be sick. Seeing him, like that, made her heart want to give up and stop beating, right then and there.

"I'll leave it unlocked." She whispered before she turned around and went back in.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: **I fully enjoy torturing characters _way_ too much.

Y'all are so wonderful. Seriously. I love you sweet people so very much. And, forgot to mention last chapter, **LadyStabler**, stop it, you're making me blush.

Quite frankly, you're _**all **_making me blush.

Bright red people, bright red. This story is a mess, you're supposed to hate it. Stop being so freaking fantastic, ya killing me here.

*Mumbles under breath* Fabulous people, I can't even.

But anyway, as always;

R&amp;R Babes. It's always appreciated.

Disclaimer: Yeah. Frickity. Frackity. Right.

Listening to: **Breathe Again, Sara Bareilles**. I swear I don't only listen to Sara Bareilles.

* * *

About an hour later, when she was nearly completely convinced he wasn't coming back, she heard foot steps on the porch, then the door handle. She could hear him hesitate, figured he was deciding to knock or not, but eventually the handle moved and the door opened. He looked less... defeated. Less... worn down. Like maybe, he was ready to do some more. Or, better put, go another round. Or that maybe he was figuring out how best to cope with this great un-justice she had done him. Whatever it may be, he looked more optimistic. More, accepting. She felt a little less sick.

She was sitting on the couch, and Nora was sitting next to her, sort of slumped over with her head on her shoulder, sleeping. Nap time was scheduled to start about 10 minuets ago. That was, on the days Nora decided she wanted to nap. She figured she was lucky that her four year old napped at all, though. She guesses that he little brain trying to figure what was going on, why she got to have a lazy day, why this strange man was in her house, why Mommy seemed so interested in this strange man, why everything probably seemed so weird today, probably wore her out. She looked exhausted. When she looked up at him, she saw his eyes flit down to Nora, and so she got up, picked the sleeping girl up, and walked over to where he was standing by the stairs.

"I'm just gonna go put her down." He just nodded and looked back down at the floor, so she went on up the stairs and put Nora down to finish her nap.

When she came back down, he was standing in the exact same spot, head still down. When he heard her reach the bottom of the stairs though, he looked up at her. She doesn't know if she's ever seen his eyes look so hollow, especially without being haunted. He just looked numb.

When she walked past him, her hand brushed his leg, and she thought her heart was going to beat right out of her chest. She could see a slight change in his eyes, too. She sat down on the couch, tucked her legs up under her to the side, and pulled a throw pillow into her lap, and he followed. Taking off the jacket he hadn't taken off since he got there, an hour and a half earlier, and sat down next to her.

"El..." He didn't seem to respond much, just stared at the wall in front of them, but she went on anyway.

"I know that there is nothing I can do to make this, _right_, again. I know that I screwed up so bad that this will _never_ be _right_ again. But El, you have to know, I didn't do this to hurt you. I didn't do it on purpose. I never intended to do this to you. It wasn't some evil, derived plan that I had. I promise you. Though I know my word probably means just a hell of a lot right now."

"El, I'm... I'm so, so sorry. I'm just..."

"Stop, Liv. Just stop."

"Stop?"

"Stop apologizing. At least for now. And just tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Everything. Everything that's happened since you left. What you do now, I heard you left the force. When Olivia Benson retires, word gets around. About Nora. About every little thing that's happened since you left. About what the hell your life's been for the last four years. Because I haven't not known what your life was since I've known you, until now. And I hate that I don't know now. Call me a selfish bastard, but I want to know everything about you that I don't anymore."

So she told him. She started with Nora, and when they bought this house, and the car she drives, and about her job. And about her pregnancy. He seemed more defeated again, more sad, upset, regretful, though she had no idea why he would be regretful, it wasn't his fault he wasn't there, when she talked about her pregnancy.

So she asked him about it.

"I didn't get to see it, Liv. I missed getting to see you pregnant. I didn't get to see you have one of the things we all thought for so long, so much, that you would never get. One of the things I prayed the hardest my partner would get. I didn't get to see you carry our child. Do you know how many times I thought about us having kids, Liv? God, I lost count so many years ago. I didn't get to see the woman I've been in love with for too many years for my Catholic mind to accept, get to carry a child. I missed your little bump, Liv. I missed all of those things. Do you know how many years I waited to see them?"

She was ready to burst out in full on tears, to just fucking loose it. But instead, she got up walked to the stairs, and then got about half way up before she decided she'd just have him join her, instead of coming back down. So she turned around, and all she had to do was give him a look, and he knew exactly what she meant. God, she missed her partner.

He followed her up, and into her room, and she told him to sit down. She went into her closet, and came back with a box, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed. She sat down next to him, balanced the box on her lap, opened it, shuffled through, and then pulled out the one she wanted and handed it to him.

"I took one about every week, sometimes every couple. I didn't do it at first, but then I realized that I didn't know if I would ever get to do this again, that I probably wouldn't get to do this again, so I started setting up the camera and the tripod, started documenting."

He looked like he'd fall right on the floor.

"That was about 28 weeks."

She shifted a little, and moved the box, then said "There all here."

He looked up at her, so she handed him the box.

He picked up the first one, and ran his thumb across it.

"That was about 10 weeks. I didn't start really showing until about 15."

So then he started picking them up, one by one, shuffling through them. Same white shirt, same spot in front of the wall, a growing belly.

He got to 16 weeks, and stopped.

"That was the week before I found out what she was. Doctor said 17 weeks was on the earlier end of the spectrum, but still right about in the ball park. God, I was so nervous that day, El."

He flipped to the next one, and she could see his eyes nearly light up. She did something special for her self that day, just in case she forgot just when it was she found out, or maybe she wanted to commemorate the moment, and since she didn't have anyone to share it with in person, she wore a pink shirt that week. Similar kind, just pink. She's glad she did. She likes to look back on the weeks, and that one's always special. It seemed to be getting him extra emotional, too.

He set the box to his side, and grabbed her hand from where it had been laying on her thigh, and intertwined their figures. And he squeezed, all the while staring at the picture. She couldn't tell what he was doing next, but she also couldn't tell you how incredible it felt to feel her partner's life reverberating through her's again. All he was doing was holding her hand, but she could have flown up and away.

He placed the picture back in the box, and picked up the rest of them. Eventually he got to the end, and she saw him really smile for the first time since he'd been there. He put them back down in the box, and then he turned to her.

"Thank you."

She was seriously going to cry.

"For what?"

"For documenting it, for showing me."

"You shouldn't have to be thankful for that, you shouldn't have to have only gotten to see it that way. You should have gotten to be here."

"I'm just glad I got to see it now."

"I've got some more documented. Tons more pictures. Videos. All of Nora's school stuff. All of her hospital stuff is in the baby book. If it happened I wrote it down or documented it some how. I didn't want to forget a thing."

"I'm glad you did, Liv."

With that, he got up and placed the box up on her dresser, and turned around to face her.

"I'm still sorry I didn't get to see it in person." He said, nodding towards the box.

"Me, too. God El, I'm so sorry."

"What did I tell you earlier? You've gotta scale back, Liv. Or you're gonna break my heart here."

"But I'm the one who did wrong. You should hate me."

"You did do wrong, and Liv I'm so mad I can't even see straight sometimes, but that doesn't change how I feel about you. How I've felt about you for the last 16 years. I hate what you did, Olivia. And for the plane ride over here, there for a minuet, I thought I did hate you. But I could never hate _you_. This is fucking wrong, so wrong. This situation should have never happened. I should have been there from the start. God, I'm so mad that when I look at you sometimes, I don't even see you. I don't see any of it. I just see the pain and the anger I feel about this shit. But jesus fucking christ, Olivia, I still love you."

"El..." It came out in almost a whisper.

He was moving closer to her now. "There's that one person, Olivia. That no matter what they fucking do, you'll always love them."

He was nearly in front of her so she stood up.

"Elliot." Again, a whisper.

"Don't, Liv. Don't pull that 'you're supposed to hate me so there's no fucking way you can love me' shit. I've been fighting to love you for sixteen years. Fighting against myself, against my guilt, against you, against your guilt. You don't get a say now. I'm not giving in. No matter how the fuck I feel about this situation. I'm not done."

She met his eyes and she felt woozy again, figured she'd just pass out, and when she woke up, none of this would have ever happened.

Instead, he kissed her.

He grabbed her by the waist, and wound one of his hand up into her hair, and he kissed her like his life depended on it. And she decided that her partner had the same pull over her that he always had. She knew she still loved him, but sometimes she wondered if his powers over her had weakened. She was foolish to think so. So she kissed him back, let him take the breath right out of her, let him support her weight, and let herself loose it.

* * *

**AN: **Because, I mean, we all know El has pictured Liv pregnant. Come on.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: **I fell like the grammar mistakes are rampant, my friends. But that's what happens when you write something, edit it, and then post it. All generally in one night. Whoopsy-daisy.

My bad.

Oh, and **katechoco**, stop crawling into my brain. No, I'm kidding. But that is a _fabulous_ idea.

*Wink wink*

R&amp;R Sweets, It's always appreciated.

Disclaimer: If I did, my life would be peachy keen, jelly bean.

P.S I really need something new to call you wonderful people.

Listening to: **Loose Yourself, Eminem**. Which by the way, I know all the words to. This is my life, ladies and gentlemen.

* * *

She threw up. Not kidding. He kissed her, she kissed him, they were fine for a minuet, then she ran off to the bathroom and threw up.

Jesus Christ.

He didn't seem to mind, or seem to be surprised, which either means he still knows her really well, or he thinks she's nuts.

Either way, she'd like to crawl out of her bathroom window and run away forever. Except, her bathroom doesn't have a window, she has a daughter sleeping just down the hall that she can't abandon, and you can't just kiss your ex-partner/ex-lover/I'm-still-completely-in-love-with-you ex-best friend, and then run. Though she'd like to, boy would she like to.

She comes sulking out of the attached bathroom, tail between her legs, and she looks up to see him standing in the middle of her bedroom, smiling. He was smiling. The rat bastard was smiling. Maybe he's trying not to spook the crazy person. Or maybe he's trying to get his ass kicked.

Either way, he was getting his ass kicked.

"You think this is funny?" She manages to choke out between wiping her mouth with her sleeve and wanting to run back into the bathroom and hurl again.

"Maybe you're just sick, Liv." He says, smug smile still on his face.

"No, my ex-partner just kissed me. And maybe I'm panicking a little."

"Oh, that was my next guess." Cocky bastard. He's so proud of himself.

If he doesn't stop smiling she's gonna karate chop his ass right out her window. The one her bedroom actually does have.

"Shut the hell up." She says before sliding past him to sit on the bed.

And as she's sitting there kind of bending over, trying to breathe, and not throw up on her bedroom floor, he sits down next to her.

"You're allowed to freak out, Liv." He says as he puts his hand on her shoulder.

"Stop being so damn nice. I don't know who the hell you are when you're nice."

"Kay. You look like hell, by the way."

She looks over at him and she can't help but smile. Damn him. "That's better. I think I prefer the asshole."

"Really?"

"Yeah, well, creature of habit, you know."

"Hmm." He nods his head at her, and he's smiling. God, she missed that smile. She missed that asshole.

They went downstairs after that, sat, had coffee, talked. It was nice. She brought out some more of the pictures, and videos, the baby book. His eyes seemed to light up. Nora's pre-school picture, her drawings, what she was for Halloween last year, what she was her first Halloween, her second, what she wants to be this year. A fighter pilot, she has no idea where she got that one. Elliot was pleased. Nora never was the princess type. It pleased her, too. It's not like she's ever been the princess type, either.

She told him about the time Nora hit a little boy in her pre-school class. Well, more like kicked him in a place that sent him to the ground. Earned an angry face on the behavior board. Which she thinks is crap, but whatever. The little boy tried to bite Nora, then called her a wimpy little girl. Though she's trying not to encourage violence, she was a little proud. Maybe more than a little. Maybe way more than she should have been. She figures between her defensiveness, and Elliot's temper, it won't be the last time. They're working on using their words. Which, of course, isn't her strong point either. She prefers to deflect, slug, and move on. They'll get there though. Eventually.

Elliot was far too proud, too. She'd yell at him, but hey, pot calling the kettle black.

Told him about taking her trick-or-treating for the first time. She didn't take her, her first year, considering she was only a little over 20 days old. Her office had a party that year, and they stopped by. She stuffed her in a lady bug costume she found at the drug store, which was mostly just pajamas, took a picture, which turned out to be mostly a blur because Nora was too busy wailing and squirming to sit still long enough. Back then she usually took most pictures when she was sleeping, or caught her on the calmest moment she could get, but not that day. Rushed her hot mess self and her over there and stayed for about an hour. It was nice to celebrate the holiday without an especially sick rape case. And the years have just gotten better since then. She was a tiny giraffe her second year, obviously mostly her doing, but she spent most of that year in the stroller asleep. A black cat her third year, and a doctor last year. She made her call her Doctor Benson, or Doctor Nora, or even just Doctor, all night long. It was hilarious, and adorable. But quite frankly, her kid is adorable no matter what she does. And she could make any costume adorable enough to go on the front of the package. Maybe she's biased. El seemed to agree.

And they've already bought her fighter pilot costume. She's taken to calling her Maverick, but of course Nora doesn't get it. El did though. Asked her if that makes her Goose. She told him to shut the hell up and yes.

Nora woke up about a half an hour after they went down stairs, and waddled down the stairs, walked right past El, and climbed up into Liv's lap where she was sitting on the couch. Still sleepy, she wasn't exactly one to wake quick, but you bet your butt the minuet she wakes up she's coming down stairs, sleepy or not, she might miss something. And just stared at El.

"Hey, babe, you wanna show Mr. Elliot your turtle?" Nora's eyes seemed to light up at that.

"Yeah." She whispered in her sleepy little hoarse voice.

"Kay. Go get it."

She slid down off Liv's lap, and shuffled her way upstairs.

"She has a turtle?" He asked as he turned back to her from where he was watching Nora as she walked up the stairs.

"Just wait." She told him.

Nora came walking back down the stairs with a stuffed turtle the size of her.

She walked over to where Elliot was sitting next to Liv, and presented him the big, floppy stuffed animal that was literally her best friend.

"Whoa. That's cool. Does he have a name?"

"Stewart." She whispered, still tiny and timid.

"Stewart? That's such a cool name. Does he do cool stuff?"

"He fights crime."

He looked over to Liv, and she couldn't help but smile. This was the first time she had seen them interact and she was in love.

"He's a super hero." She explained.

"Oh wow. That's so awesome. So he saves the city, like Batman or Superman?"

Nora shook her head. "No, like Superman and Wonder Woman."

He looked back to Liv and she explained "They're her favorites." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Can I tell you a secret?" He said as he looked back at Nora, leaning forward to where she was standing in front of him.

She just nodded.

"Superman's my favorite too. And I think Wonder Woman is the _coolest._ I mean, she has an invisible plane."

Nora seemed to relax. "Her bracelets are my favorite."

"Those are so awesome. She can stop a bullet with those things."

"And save the world."

"And save the world." He was nodding his head and smiling. Her heart was so happy.

Sometimes she wonders if she had a small stroke and that's why she didn't tell him.

"He used to have a cape. But the neighbor's dog ate it."

"No way?!"

"Yeah, I left Stewart on the front porch, and he took it. Guess his parents didn't teach him not to steal."

"That's not cool, huh?"

"No. He ate his cape for lunch. But then I saw him in the front yard later, he looked like he had a belly ache. I think that made a Stewart feel better."

God, sometimes she forgets how cool and smart her kid is.

"Learned his lesson, huh?"

"Mmm hmm." She said, taking Stewart back, and turning around to take Stewart back up stairs, her little pony tail swinging the whole time. So sassy. So freaking sassy. God, she loved her kid.

She was this perfect little mix of her and El. And she couldn't ask for any better.

"Jesus Christ, she's amazing."

"Mmm hmm." She nodded her head. "Preaching to the choir. I'm sorry you didn't get to meet her sooner, El. I'm sorry you didn't to be there from the start."

He just looked over at her, and his eyes looked sad. So, so sad.

"Me too, Liv. Me too."

About that time Nora came back down stairs, and wedged herself between Elliot and Olivia on the couch. She was getting more comfortable with him. It made her feel like she could breathe better.

"Do you work in New York like Momma used to?" She asked Elliot, looking over and up at him.

"I sure do." He told her.

"He works with Uncle Fin and Uncle Munch Munch and Papa Don." Liv cut in.

"No way! You get to see uncle Fin _every day_?"

"Just about." He said.

"That's the coolest. I wish I could see Uncle Fin everyday." She said, a little sad.

"What about Uncle Munch Munch and Papa Don?" Liv asked, huffing out a breathy laugh. She was deflecting, because she knew how much Nora missed them, and so searingly, desperately wanted to meet Fin and Munch in person, and not just on Skype. And it hurt. She wished more than anything in the world that her little girl could be surrounded by family, and that she hadn't made the decision to leave that would get them stuck here. But she struggles with that often, because Nora's happy here. She likes her house, her school, her friends, the friends that Liv has managed to make that have become the closest thing they have to family out here, the park down the street, her yard. Her life here. But she wants nothing more than to take her baby girl home. To _her_ home. To have her experience New York and how incredible it is. To see all its wonders and to hopefully, maybe fall in love. To see the hustle and bustle, to hear the sounds, to meet the people, to experience central park. She thinks sometimes that maybe they should take a vacation, but she knows if she went back, she could never leave again.

"Well, of course. I need to see Uncle Munch Munch everyday so he can tell me all the silly stories about Uncle Fin, and take me to Yanks games. And I want to _live_ with Papa Don, duh."

She just chuckled to herself. That kid is seriously the best thing she's ever done.

"Wow. You really love your Papa Don, huh?" El asked.

"Yep. He's my favorite."

"Hey!" Liv said, "Even over me!?"

"Well, I guess you tie." She said.

"Gee, thanks."

"I only birthed you. " She mumbled under her breath. Which only El heard, and had to stifle a laugh at.

"So, a Yanks fan?" He asked Nora.

"Yeah. They're the best. Always."

He looked over at Liv, amused.

"She won't even root for any teams out here." She said. "Just her Yankees." She added.

"Well, duh." Nora commented, "No one's better." Then she got up off the couch and headed for the kitchen.

"Uh, Ma'am." Liv said. "Where do you think you're going?" She asked.

"Kitchen. To get a snack." She answered.

El just looked at Liv, and he looked like he was about to lose his cool and start laughing hysterically.

"What's the rule?" She shouted back, as Nora rounded the corner to the kitchen.

"No cookies until after dinner." She yelled back, and Liv could hear her rummaging through the pantry.

El shook his head, a big smile on his face.

She came back in with a pack of fruit snacks, holding them up for Liv to see.

Liv nodded in approval, and reached out to open them for her. Once they were open, she took them back and started scooping out just the red ones.

El gave Liv a look, so she explained "She's figured out I won't give her a new pack just because she's out of the flavors she likes. So she eats the ones she doesn't first, then the ones she does."

"Saving the best for last, I guess." He said. She nodded in agreement.

Then Nora asked, "May I watch TV?"

"Yeah. But something educational." Liv said.

Nora made a face on that, but said "Timely Train's on."

Liv made a face at that and said "How about Katie and the Magic Tree?"

Nora sighed a bit but said "Alright."

"Kay." Liv nodded. "You watch TV, and Mr. Elliot and I are gonna go out on the front porch. You yell if you need me, Okay?"

"Yeah." Nora said.

Liv and El got up from the couch, and Nora hopped up, curling herself up in her favorite corner, and pulling her little blanket down from the top of the couch and over her.

Liv and El made their way out onto the porch, Liv grabbing the table from the end table on the way out.

They sat down on the swing, and Liv situated herself on the end closet to the door. Then she pulled out the tablet.

Elliot looked over at her and down at the tablet, with his eyebrows raised.

"Monitor. Still up, for when I'm cooking in the kitchen or something. The camera sits on the mantle now."

"Why do you have to be such a genius, Liv?" He said, smiling at her.

"Just wanna make sure I can always keep an eye on her. I mean, you've met her. She's a handful."

"Yeah, but she's perfect.

Liv looked back up and over at him from where she had pulled up the app for the monitor on the tablet, with starry eyes, and nodded.

"God, we did good Liv." He said, looking over at her from his position leaving over with his elbows on his knees.

"You have no idea."

"Hopefully one day I will." He said.

She just nodded, and tried not to openly sob on her porch swing.

"I guess I should say _you_ did good. You've raised her."

"El."

"No, I'm not, I don't mean, I just mean you did _good_, Liv."

"I always knew you'd be an incredible mother." He finished.

"I try, so hard. I don't wanna use that crap that I wanted to give her what I never had. But we both had crappy childhoods, with some screwed up parents, and some fucked up situations, and I've seen how that's affected us."

"I just didn't want her to have that."

He nodded.

"But I guess I screwed that up anyway."

He looked at her and she gestured between them.

"Yeah, but you're trying to fix it now. Our parents never really did that."

"I should have never created it in the first place." She said and got up, leaving the tablet between them, and walked over to the railing of the porch, leaning against it, looking out on to her street.

"Liv."

She turned around to face him. "That's not why I left you. Not why I left New York. Not why I never called. Not why I didn't tell you." She said.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Because I thought it would screw her up. Because I thought it wasn't the best." She clarified.

"I mean, I obviously didn't know I was pregnant when I left New York. But I panicked, El. I had just done something that changed everything. When I thought about you and me and it, God, I couldn't breathe."

"We."

"Huh?"

"_We_." He said.

"_We _had just done something that changed everything. You could have talked to me, Liv."

She just looked down.

"We didn't do anything wrong, Liv."

"We were partners." She said, looking back up.

"Which is exactly why I expected you to trust me more. And hell, quite frankly, respect me more."

"I was terrified. I couldn't loose you, Elliot. And we were partners who had just slept together. That was about to fuck everything up."

"But leaving wasn't loosing me? That was better?"

"It was easier. I could control it. I could control the hurt."

He looked straight into her eyes then. "God, Liv, you should have just said something."

"It wouldn't have changed anything."

"Even if I wanted to be with you?"

She had to divert her eyes when she told him it wouldn't change anything, but they shot back up to his on that.

"God, Olivia, I wanted to be with you and you just up and left. Just fucking took off. And I had to hear it from Fin. Seriously, _Fin_? You couldn't even leave a note, a god damn voice mail message, _say goodbye_ when you left the station that day, something?"

But she did. She wrote a note she intended to leave in his locker the next day when she went in to get her stuff, but then she didn't come in the next day. After she got to California, she asked Don to clean out her stuff and ship it to her. Including something grey and not hers, that she still sleeps in or wears around the house sometimes, to this day.

"I did."

"What?"

"I wrote a note that I was going to leave in your locker when I came in to get my stuff the next day. But I just left that night, figured it made it easier."

"For who?"

"All of us. I didn't have to see you, you didn't have to see me. And I didn't have to cry like a baby when I went into Don's office to say goodbye, like I knew I would."

He looked up at her, hurt.

"I knew if I saw you I'd never be able to leave. And I knew you'd figure out something was wrong, and one 'stay' from you, and I would have stayed."

"I would have never let you leave."

"Exactly."

"I would have followed you out to California if I had to."

She raised her eyebrows at him.

"When I heard you'd retired someone mentioned California. Thought I'd fall on my ass."

"Furthest from New York. Also most obvious apparently."

"How the hell'd you end up in Utah?"

"Decided I didn't want to be a cop anymore. Wanted a change. Missed the fucking Cold. Do you know how hot and bright it is out there? God, I always had a headache."

"I wanted some familiarity, within a safety zone. Utah provided that with actual seasons."

"I think Fin misses you." He said.

She raised her eyebrows a little, because sudden change of topic, but she figured he was done being emotional.

"He just seems to be getting even more pissed off."

"Yeah, and how many lockers have you punched?" She asked.

"Broke my pinky hitting the edge of a concrete wall." He said.

"New partner just steps back and let's me do it. Seems kinda terrified, too."

"You always seemed to know exactly when to step in, and exactly when to just let me go. And you never seemed afraid to get in the middle."

"Yeah, well, you were harmless. You weren't going to hit me. And after 12 years, you learn to read someone."

"Nah, Liv. Always. Something about you, you were the only one who was ever able to take my shit."

"Well, you took mine." She said shrugging her shoulders.

"And I think I have some special dealing with impossible men gene." She said, sitting back down next to him, and picking the tablet back up.

"Or maybe just a dealing with Elliot gene."

"You should get some kind of an award." He said.

"I did, she's in the house." She answered, jutting her body back towards the door.

El just shook his head and looked back down at the floor boards of the porch.

"Seriously, El. You gave her to me. And she's perfect because of it."

"Yeah, and she's perfect because she's half you." He said.

"Well let's just agree we're awesome and we make one pretty badass kid, then."

He made a small agreeing sound from his throat, and said "You've got it."

* * *

**AN:** This chapter just kinda got away from me. My frustration with certain ships of mine at the moment stole it. Moving on. Up next, a park day and a little inappropriate Mommy Daddy time? We shall see.


	8. Chapter 8

I'm sorry for the wait, y'all. Weird last couple of weeks.

Moving on.

**Tidbit**: In Da Club came on when I was writing this chapter, and all I could think about was Chris and Marish and their little twitter/instagram fling, and the In Da Club/birthday incident.

R&amp;R ya little cutie pies. It's always appreciated.

Disclaimer: Because it would have taken 16 years for her to become a Mother, and her child's father would be someone else besides Elliot Stabler if I did. Yeah.

Listening to:** Blank Space, my girl Tay. **And might I add, jamming.

_**Boys only want love if it's torture. **_

* * *

They joined Nora in the house, and Liv fed her dinner. El watched Sports Center, yelled at Sports Center when they started talking about the Jets and Giants and comparing records, then eventually got fed up and turned it off. Same old Elliot. She may have smiled a small smile to herself while trying to haggle Nora into eating her chicken.

By the time they were done, it was nearing 8:00. So Liv asked El if he was gonna stick around a while, and he said yes, so she went on upstairs to give Nora a bath.

As she was getting Nora into her pajamas, and ready for bed, she asked her something she didn't really have an answer to.

"Mommy?"

"Yeah, sweets?"

"Is Mr. Elliot staying the night?"

"Oh, honey. I don't know. But I don't think so. I'm sure he's got a really cool and awesome hotel room with a big, fluffy bed he's gonna stay in."

"Like the one we stayed in when we went to Calvary for work?"

"Yep."

"Oh, okay." She looked a little disappointed. And it made her sad. Truthfully, she had no idea what his plan was. But she figured that was the safest bet. And the best thing to tell Nora.

"Is he gonna be here tomorrow?"

She looked up into her sweet little girl's face from where she had been helping her shove her arm into the sleeve of her pajama shirt, and she just looked so hopeful.

"I don't know sweetie. But I tell you what, how about we go to the park tomorrow?"

"My favorite one with Miss Jamie?!"

"Of course baby. That sound good, hmm?"

"Yeah. Can we take a lunch? Oh, or go to Mully's?! Their Pizza's my _favorite_."

"I know, I know. We'll see, Kay?"

"Okay."

"Good. Sounds like a plan." She smiled at her, and Nora seemed content. She guessed she'd be a little disappointed if Elliot wasn't here when she woke up in the morning, but hell, then again, so would she.

Nora got into bed and Liv pulled out her favorite bed time story, the one she only gets out for the pictures now because she could recite it by heart they've read it so many times. It didn't take long into the book for Nora to be out, so as soon as she was sure she was asleep, Liv put the book back, turned the light out, kissed her baby girl, and tip toed out of the room.

Once she got back down stairs, she noticed El on the couch, phone in hand, but no jacket on and seemingly relaxed. He wasn't leaving anytime soon. She felt the butterflies pitting in her stomach. She felt like an idiot, but she couldn't help herself.

"Hey." She said, coming down off the last step and towards the couch.

"Hey." He said, looking up at her.

"Everything Okay?" She said, nodding down at his phone.

"Yeah, yeah. Just talking to Kathleen."

"How's she doing?" She asked. She was genuinely concerned. She missed his kids.

"Good. Really good actually. She's got a good job at some law firm, sort of a built in guidance councilor for clients with mental illnesses, a good steady boyfriend, I'm proud of her." He said.

"I bet. She's come a long way."

"Wouldn't have without you, Liv."

"El." She said, sitting down next to him. "She got where she is because of good parents and a good support system and the help she got. I had nothing to do with it."

"Bullshit." He said, looking straight at her.

She gave him an exhausted look, but he wasn't giving up.

"_You_ helped get her to_ want_ the help. I still don't know what you did or what you said to her, but whatever it was, it worked. You're a miracle worker, Liv."

He shook his head a little, made a small scoffing sound, then went on,"Hell, you've helped get a lot of my children out of trouble. Eli wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for you. You're his guardian angel."

"No, Eli wouldn't be here if it wasn't for FDNY. _They're_ his guardian angels."

He gave her an irritated look and all she could think was God, she missed irritating him.

"Just take some damn credit, Liv."

She just shook her head and laughed a little, diverting the subject some.

"How is Eli? How are all the Stabler children? I miss them."

"He's good. Seven now. Huge. Tall. Plays T-ball. Thinks he's the coolest thing ever. Loves to annoy his sisters when they're home. Was just a T-Rex in his school play. Mention's his _Livvy_ sometimes, misses her. Mo's good. She's got a good Law job up in Jersey, which is where Kathy and Eli are now with Kathy's husband. Liz and Dick are in their last year of school now. Liz is at Hudson, she wants to be a doctor, but right now she's just studying pharmaceuticals. Dick's at NYU, he wants to be a director, but he's Okay with just working in multi media."

"Wow. Over achievers, much?" She said with a small laugh. She really was so proud of all of them.

He looked at her and smiled a big, proud smile.

She waited a second, then asked, "Kathy re-married?"

She knew broaching the subject could be dangerous, but she did so anyway. She was genuinely curious.

"Yeah. About two years ago. His name's Carl, good guy. Got two kids of his own. Grown. They seem to be doing good. He treats Eli good. Which threatens the shit out of me, of course. But I'm dealing."

"That's good, El. I'm happy for her. Happy she's doing good." She said, looking straight into his eyes, trying to gauge his reaction and see how he really felt about it.

"How do you really feel about it?" She finally said, eying him.

"It should be weird. Should've been weirder the moment we got divorced. But it's not. It was only weird back then because the familiarity was gone. It should feel _worse_ that not only am I divorced, but I'm divorced with an ex-wife who's re-married. But it doesn't. Everything just feels... at peace now. But I'm glad she's happy, and that Eli's got a stable, happy environment. It's good." He said, nodding.

"Good." She knew they weren't doing so good back then, after they got divorced. But she knew he was trying. She's glad it paid off. He deserved that. _They_ deserve that, both he and Kathy. The kids too.

"The kids still doing alright with it?"

"They've gotten even better with it. You know it was a little hard for them at first, but not that bad. They do seem more at peace, more settled now with it, though. I think they always knew it was for the best, it just took an adjustment period."

She nodded. It felt nice to know they were finally able to get over that hump. She knew it was killing Elliot back then that they were struggling a little with it. The man deserves a good relationship with his kids.

That thought made her sick. She had stolen that from him with Nora. And she didn't know how the hell to make up for it now. God, she was a terrible person.

"You Okay?" He asked her, looking over at her and into her eyes.

She had to divert them, she couldn't lie to him otherwise.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Four years, still the same Olivia."

"Hmm?" She asked him.

"You're not fine. You never are when you say that. But I'm not gonna push it."

She sighed and look over at the time on the entertainment center.

"It's late. Do you need to get to your hotel to make check in?" She didn't know where he was staying, and didn't know their late night check in hours. But since he had been here all day she figured he had already checked in or he was probably needing to go. She was also fishing. She had the same questions Nora did.

"Yeah, actually, I probably should. Check In's not till twelve, but I should probably get going anyway."

"Kay." She said, standing up as he followed. He moved around getting his things, and then met her at the door.

"You, uh, you gonna stop by tomorrow? Nora asked."

"Yeah, I was planning on it, if that's uh, if that's cool with you." Stumbling over their words like nervous teenagers.

"Yeah, yeah. That's good. I know Nora will be excited to see you."

"Good, good." He said.

He stopped for a second, looked down at his feet, back up at her, and then finally said, "Kay. Night."

"Night." She said as he turned around to reach for the door knob.

"El?" She said. Now or never, Olivia.

"Yeah?" He said truing back around, seemingly eager. Maybe, relieved?

"Or you could just stay here." She said, meeting his eyes. They were so god damn blue. Her kryptonite. She thought she might pass out.

"Kay." He answered. And she could see the intensity in his eyes.

"We've got a guest room, just at the end of the hall upstairs. Not much, but did the job when Don stayed."

"I'll go get my bag." He said.

She nodded and he headed out the front door to his rental car.

After he went out the door, she went upstairs to put new sheets on the bed. As she was doing so, she couldn't help but think that this felt _too right_. He was here, he was staying in her house, and their daughter was in love with him. Nearly everything she's wanted.

As she was putting the sheets on the bed, he came around the corner into the room carrying his bag.

"I locked up on my way back in." He said.

"Okay. Thanks." She said.

"I just, wanted to put a fresh pair of sheets on the bed." She added, nodding towards the bed, as she stood up right again, to face him.

"Thanks." He said. Walking over to put his bag on the chair in the corner.

She nodded, and added "There's extra blankets in the closet across the hall, and the bathroom's the third door down."

He turned back around to look at her, nodding.

"Thanks for letting me stay, Liv."

"No problem. You didn't already have a room reserved, did you? Cause I don't want you to loose any money or anything. I don't want you to feel like you have to stay."

"Nah, I just figured I'd find a room when I got here. I barely got my plane ticket bought I was moving so fast. I was out of there as soon as I got it out of Fin. I just threw some stuff into a bag and took off. Didn't really think much." He says, pauses. Then, " And I _want_ to stay, Liv."

She nodded pensively, and said,"Okay." She paused. "Well then, night. I guess."

"Night." He said, looking straight into her eyes. But he sure as hell didn't look like he meant it.

She hesitated, but she turned around anyway.

As her hands hit the door she heard him.

"Liv."

"Yeah?" She said. Not turning around.

"Stay." She could _feel_ his intensity.

She turned back around and it was instant. He grabbed her by the waist pushed her back against the door, wrapping her up in him. A hand at her waist, gripping, and a hand in her hair. His body holding her in place and making her heart _race_. He kissed her so hard she thought she'd lose her breath forever. Every inch of her was buzzing, and now her heart felt like it was going to leap right out of her throat.

Her hands desperately clung to his back, as he pushed her further into the door.

"El." She tried to breathe out. But it sounded more like a strangled whisper.

When his mouth moved from hers to her neck, she tried again.

"Elliot." Still soft and strangled, but a little louder this time.

"Hmm." Was all she got out of him.

"We should stop." She said, as her breathing picked up.

He stopped, hands moving to her upper arms, and distanced himself just the littlest bit. So close still though, that she could feel his hot breath mingling with hers.

His eyes came to hers with question, and quite frankly, hurt in them.

"We should stop." She repeated, swallowing.

He gave her a skeptical look, one that read 'When hell freezes over', then said, "Tell me to stop, tell me to stop and don't sound like you're doing nothing short of bullshitting me."

He looked away from her for a second, bowed his head, squinted those fucking ridiculous blue eyes together, furrowed his brow.

Eventually his hands slipped down to hers, and she knew it wasn't over. She was caught. He had her. He had _always_ had her. She couldn't leave now.

He almost seemed to _feel_ the shift in her, so he looked back up and he could clearly see it, right there, radiating. He squinted his eyes again and tilted his head at her, and suddenly she had a flashback to that god damn day in the squad room.

She took a deep breath. Tried to calm her heart. Then she told him yes with her eyes and that was it. The dam broke. The damn fell the hell apart. Every force was broken and there was no stopping them.

And she didn't care one damn little bit. Fuck that, fuck it, fuck it all, and apparently, fuck her.

One force in the world, one force in the world that could make her do anything. Him, them, cerulean, unfairly, blue fucking damn-it-all-to-hell eyes.

...

She was lying in bed next to him, or well half _on top of him_. She was lying in bed next to Elliot and Jesus, was the panic raising. She could feel his chest rising and falling underneath of her, his hand around her shoulders, gripping, tight, the other playing with her hair, and she never wanted to leave. That scared her. _Shit, _she's a mess.

He moves a little under her, and it snaps her back.

"Liv."

She hears his voice, but she's just trying to stay in the moment and not worry about what comes next.

When she doesn't respond he tries again. "Olivia."

She moves her head up towards his a little, and her head cheek bumps his head.

"Hmm?"

"Panicking?"

"Slightly."

"Settle down. I'm not going anywhere, you're not going anywhere. Let's talk."

She wants to. Jesus does she want to talk and talk and just talk until she can't speak anymore. But she's afraid if she says some of those things he'll be gone in the next instant and all of this will be over.

"There's nothing to talk about." She says. And even as it comes out of her mouth she knows he knows it's a lie.

"Yes there is."

"No." She whispers, small, timid.

"Bullshit. Yes there is. Talk to me, Olivia."

She takes a breath then says, "What's next?"

"I don't know."

"Well, this talking this is working out really damn well isn't it?"

"Liv."

"No, El." She says, sitting up on her elbow, facing him, her other hand landing on his chest and looking at his face.

"You say you want to talk about it, like you're some perfect little solution that can make me feel better and press down all of my fears, yet 'I don't know' is all you say. Don't fucking force me to talk about something that I'd rather forget if that's the all you've got."

"Forget?" He says, scrunching his eyebrows, and making such a sour, hurt, offended face she re-tracks back over her words.

"Not, I mean, I don't, I didn't." She sighs and drops her head, her hair coming down around her face to create a curtain. "El." She whispers, desperate, defeated, _emotional as hell_.

"Liv. Look at me." He says, nice and strong, moving his hand that had slipped from her hair when she sat up, and placing it on top of her head, cradling it of sorts, and kissing the top of her head.

She closes her eyes tight, takes a deep breath trying to _get it together_, and looks up at him.

When her eyes meet his he speaks. "I _don't_ know, but we're gonna figure it out. I didn't know what was gonna happen when I got in my car and headed for the airport, of what the hell was gonna happen when I got here. But I still went. I still went because I wanted this, I wanted to meet her, I_ needed _to meet her, needed to see you, so I came here and took that chance. We fixed a lot of shit, including our selves countless times, over twelve years. We can figure this out."

She believes every word he says, but her head still hurts and she still needs some more clarity.

"I trust you, Elliot. I trust_ that_. But I still have no idea what's happening next and that scares the shit out of me."

"You didn't know what was going to happen when you came out here, I'm sure when you found out you were pregnant, when you had her. Bringing her home for the first time had to me fucking terrifying. You made it then."

"Don was here."

"Huh?"

"When I brought her home, he was still here. Stayed for a couple more days. I wasn't alone."

"And you're not now." He says with conviction.

She meets his eyes again from the spot on his chest she had dropped her eyes to.

Nodding her head she says, "I know."

"We'll be fine, Liv. Me, you, me and Nora. We'll be alright. I promise."

"I wish you would stop being so god damn nice. You're supposed to hate me. Supposed to be irately mad. I don't know how you even look at me, let alone sleep with me." She says.

"I am mad, Liv. I _was_ irately mad. But the second I saw your eyes, standing out on that sidewalk, it was over. I saw the Olivia I've known for 16 years. I saw the Olivia that helped my kid get the help she needed, helped me fix shit with my wife so many damn times, the Olivia that said something that nearly literally fucking crushed me out side a hospital room, and made me realize that I was so much more in love with her than I fucking thought. That saved my ass so many times I lost count in the first five years, that kept me sane for 12 years, no matter how sick the bastards got. The Olivia that helped deliver my son, and now I see the Olivia that gave me my daughter. Doesn't matter if I'm mad or if I forgive you or not, I still feel the same. It should, but for whatever fucked up reason, it doesn't."

She knows exactly what he means, what she said, and suddenly "_What about me?_" is playing over and over in her head.

So she's just slept with her ex-partner, and now she's going to cry in bed with him. Since when was the bastard so poetic. Damn it.

"It doesn't change the first 12 years, Olivia. It does put them into perspective, and make me think about them differently. But it doesn't change that they did happen, and that they happened the way they did."

She nodded her head, making small circles and absent minded patterns on his chest, then flattening her hand down.

"I am sorry, El."

"Five hundredth time, Liv."

"I kept your daughter from you. I stole all of those moments. I kept _you_ from_ her_. I can't apologize enough."

"No, but I get it by now. I know you're sorry, Liv. I expected you to be when I got here."

She gives him a look because, how.

"I know you." He says with a shoulder shrug. "Or, well, I used to know you."

"I've not changed that much, El." She says. Looking back down to his chest.

"Yeah, you have. You've, evolved. You're different. But, still my partner that I used to know inside and out. You've just, grown."

She tucks some of her hair behind her ear, nodding.

"Good thing, Liv. remember that. It's a _good thing_. It's not bad to grow."

"Yeah, but it makes me afraid that we're not the same us, the same connection now."

"Well, no we're not the same us, but you're always the same you and I'm always the same me, just with additions. Like that perfect little one down the hall, and the better in check anger that I'm working on. We're always gonna have the same connection, Liv. We could go anywhere, come back together, and we'd still have the same, exact connection we've always had."

She sighs and nods, laying her head back down on his chest.

He returns his hand to her hair, and once again tightens his hand that landed around her waist when she sat up. Then leans down to kiss her head, then puts his own head back on the pillow.

They laid there most of the night, but somewhere around three she woke up and stumbled back to her room. She wanted to be there in case Nora woke up before her and came looking.

He understood and let her go, but not before kissing her again so fiercely she seriously considered letting her daughter find her in a bed with Mr. Elliot.

Oh, how that man can cloud her judgement.

...

About 7:30 she heard her door knob, figuring it was Nora, she didn't bother to roll over. Until she didn't hear a 'Mommy' or feel the bed dip. She rolled over to see him standing there, now in a pair of light grey sweats and a dark green t-shirt, still looking far too fucking attractive.

"El?" She said, raising up onto her left elbow.

"Yeah."

"Oh, thought you might be Nora."

"No, she's still sleeping. I peaked." He said, moving forward a little.

"Oh. Since when did you stop sleeping in boxers and a t-shirt?" She said, nodding toward him.

"Figured it wasn't too appropriate with our four-year old daughter sleeping down the hall."

"You used to sleep that way at home. Won't ever forget the day I came to get you and you answered the door that way. Jesus, I think we had only been partners three years then."

"Well, sorry to scar you for life." He said with a smile. "But she know I'm here?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.

"No. She asked me when I put her to bed. Told her you probably weren't staying."

He just nodded, his face too unreadable for her liking.

"Glad you did, though."

"Me, too."

He stepped the rest of the way over to the bed, stopping next to it. Hands in his pockets.

She looked up to him, and pulled the comforter back, a silent offering

He accepted.

He crawled in next to her, pulling the comforter back up, and she couldn't resist.

"What, you miss me in 4 and a half hours?" She asked, smiling.

"Yes." He said. Honest. _**So**_ fucking honest.

"El." She said, rolling over and looking up at the ceiling.

"I'm not hiding it anymore. Any of it. Did that for 12 years. Fucking hated it."

She doesn't know who this new Elliot is, but sometimes she really loves him.

"Well, then, I missed your pain in the ass self, too."

He looks over at her and smiles. "Good."

"You ass." She says.

"See, I haven't changed. Told you."

"Shut up." She says, rolling back over and he slides down to laying down, and she snuggles her way into his side. Unabashedly. If he's not hiding it anymore, then neither is she.

She doesn't know what this means, for them, but she knows that she still loves him and that her heart won't, can't, seem to let go. And she doesn't ever want to leave here, right here, right now. With him.

...

Nora gets up about 9, herself and El had managed to make their way down there about a half an hour before, and she was making Norah's traditional Saturday pancakes when she came down the stairs. El was sitting at the table, making jabs at her home decorating, and noticed her first.

When she turned around, she was standing just inside the entryway to the attached breakfast nook, rubbing her eyes.

"Hey, hon, pancakes?"

She nods her head, and finally drops her hand from her eyes.

"Kay. Go sit in your chair, they'll be done in a minuet."

She flicked her eyes over to El for a second, then padded over to her chair, next to Elliot at the four-chair, round table, on the backside, so she was facing the counter.

As she was finishing up, she heard chatter behind her. She had no idea what they were talking about, but she was glad they were talking. Unprovoked.

She heard Nora laugh, and she couldn't help but smile and think, 'Don't worry, kid. Mommy's charmed by him, too.'

She finished the pancakes and plated them, bringing Nora's on her little pink, plastic, divided plate, with some grapes and her little pink matching cup with some orange juice, and Elliot's over, then going back for hers.

She sat down in her traditional chair, across from Nora, on the other side of Elliot, back facing the counter, and her facing the wall that had the bookshelf at one end, and her desk at the other.

They ate in silence for a while, until Nora spoke up.

She looked at Elliot and said, "Mommy and I are going to the park, my favorite, the one with Miss Jamie and Andy, do you wanna come?"

And she said it so confidently, like there was no way in hell he'd say no. But she knew there was no way he was going to say no, not to Nora, anyway. It was still adorable. Child had the confidence with him that she only gained through years of familiarity.

First he looked to Liv, said, "And I?"

She just shrugs her shoulders and says, "She's a genius." Really she had out of accidental habit corrected her once, and she's said it correctly ever since.

He then looked to Nora and said,"Absolutely." Nodding his head once definitively.

Nora smiled, proud of herself.

She just looked down at her pancakes, smiling.

God, she loved him.

"So, tell me about this park. What kind of cool things does it have?" He asked.

"Oh, my gosh, so many. It has..."

As Nora went off into her speech about how _spectacular_ this park was, she watched Elliot's face. He was truly lighting up.

And Nora was so enamored by him, that it only made not telling him hurt that much more.

...

Around 11, she packed up Nora and got her things together, and they all headed out. They took her car, and her intention was the sedan that they drive most often now. But Nora insisted on the Mustang, arguing that she just _had_ to show Mr. Elliot. She tried to explain to her that Mr. Elliot knew she had the Mustang, from their time back in New York, but she wasn't having it. So they moved her booster seat, and took the Mustang. She still had the thing, because it was paid off and all she had to do way pay to insure it. Which, was kind of expensive, but she wasn't ready to let go yet. The stupid thing was her 'I'm not even mid-life' mid life crisis, but she loved the thing. And Nora was obsessed with it. So she kept it. Pulled it out once and a while. Didn't just let it sit, she hated that, don't have it if you don't intend to use it, drove it to work a couple of times, impressed her co-workers beyond belief, and made sure to relish in the fact that she was lucky enough to have a bad ass car.

El seemed to admire it quite a bit, too.

"It seriously is bad ass, Liv" He said, low enough that only she could hear, though Nora was too busy playing on the tablet in the back, to care.

"And I can't tell you how 'Olivia' it is." He continued.

"How 'Olivia', it is?" She asked.

"Yeah. You're a New Yorker, and Manhattanite , so picturing you driving anything but the Crown Vic is weird, but if I were to picture you driving something, this fits." He said, looking around some and running his hand across the dashboard.

"Well, apparently I had a mid life crisis and decided I needed to be a 50 year old man and buy a classic car. It is pretty bad ass though. I like having it. And Nora _loves_ it."

"That kid is something else." He said.

"Yeah, she is. Quite the little card."

"Like Mother, like daughter."

She looked over at him for a second, then back at road and smiled.

"Ass." She said.

"I think you mean adorable ass."

"Shut up before I smack you out of my car." She told him, laughing.

And he laughed back. Jesus Christ, she missed him. Missed stupid talks in a car. Granted, it used to be the Crown Vic and not her Mustang with their four year old in the back, but this would do.

They get to the park, and Jamie is setting on the bench, and she sees Andy by the slide. Nora races to him, but not before stopping to give Jamie a hug.

That kid really loved her.

Liv's glad, with all the mistakes she made, like California and then Utah in general, she was able to provide Nora with some stable, trustworthy, family figures.

They walk up to the bench and she hears Nora yell, "Mr. Elliot, come push me on the swing!"

He's gone in an instant, and by her side almost before she can finish her sentence.

She thinks this was what he was hopping for.

For her to let him in.

And like hell if she didn't.

She sat down next to Jamie, and she could feel her staring at the side of her face. Glaring, almost.

"Elliot?!" She says, exasperated.

"Yes."

"Is that the damn Elliot I think it is?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't call me?!"

"He got here yesterday morning, I was just trying not to pass out from shock. I walked out onto my porch to take Nora to school, and there he was. Soaking wet on my sidewalk. I thought my heart was gonna stop."

"Jesus. Just showed up?"

"Yeah."

She'd told Jamie some about Elliot, enough, she knew who he was, and most of what happened. She doesn't know exactly how Olivia feels about him, though. Not quite, not the full extent. And there are still tiny bits and pieces of the 12 years missing.

She knows he's Nora's father, that they slept together just before she left, and that up until now, he didn't know.

She's been Olivia's local driving force that stood by her, but disagreed with her.

She gets the picture, just not the whole thing.

She prefers it that way, less of a mess to explain.

And less of El that she has to share.

"He knows, right?"

"Yeah. Knew when he got here. Friend told him."

"Don?"

"No. Fin."

"Oh." Jamie knew about the rest of the squad, had seen some of the pictures Liv had.

Asked her if Fin was single and if she could have dibs on him. Jamie's married, mind you.

"Can't believe someone that hot would betray that much. How the hell'd he find out?"

"He didn't betray, Jamie. He didn't what I didn't have the damn guts to do." She said. Looking on at El and Nora on the swings.

"Don told him. El eventually got it out of Fin."

Jamie looked over at her, sympathetic, but looking like she'd still kick Fin's ass. Hot or not.

"Being slammed against a lock can be pretty persuasive."

Suddenly Jamie looked alarmed.

"Don't worry, anger issues only fuel with large men that piss him off, and perps. No one else. Not his wife. Not his kids. Not me. Ever."

Jamie nodded and looked back to where Andy was on the swing.

"He a good guy?"

"The best I know."

"She seems to like him."

"She's in love." She could hear it in her own voice, and she knows she probably tipping Jamie off about how she feels. Sometimes she's so god damn obvious.

"She know?"

"No. Not yet, anyway."

Again she nodded and said, "Wife and kids know?"

She just shrugged her shoulders and corrected, "Ex-wife."

Jamie looked at her with question.

"6 months before I left. 6 months before we slept together. For the first time." She reverberated, not for the first time.

She wanted it clear. Divorced, then slept with his partner. Not that it made her feel any better.

"Not because of...?"

"No. He says no."

"But you suspect?"

"He told me he was in love with me three hours before we slept together." She says, taking in a breath, deep, sighing.

"In a damn locker room, against a locker."

"What the hell is it with you people and lockers?"

She looked over at Jamie and smiled. This was the most she had shared with her.

"Don't ask me." She said, shaking her head.

"How many kids?"

"Five, six counting Nora."

"Jesus Christ."

"Yeah. First one still in high school. Why he became a Marine, became a cop."

"_Ohhh_, a marine." She said with _way_ too much delight.

"Hands off." She said, shaking her head and laughing, patting Jamie's thigh and standing up to walk over to El and Nora, ruffling Andy's hair as he ran past her back toward Jamie.

"Hey, baby." She said to Nora as she approached where El had just stopped pushing her, and they were now talking.

"Mr. Elliot says this is the coolest park he's ever seen."

"Really?" She said, looking over to Elliot where he stood next to the swing Nora was on."Even cooler than Central Park?"

"Well..." He said, smiling.

"That's the one in New York, right Mommy?"

"Right baby."

"I'm gonna see there one day."

"Yes you are, baby." She said, with conviction, looking back to Nora, then meeting eyes with Elliot again.

...

When they walked back over to the bench, Andy was sitting next to Jamie, sucking down a juice box.

When Nora got close, he picked up one from beside him, and handed it to her.

"Thanks." She said, and hopped up on the bench next to him as Jamie got up.

"Hi." She said, sticking her hand out to Elliot.

He took it and shook.

"Jamie Lindwell. And that's Andy." She said, gesturing over her shoulder, "Or butthead when he's being particularly his father's child."

He laughed and said, "I've got one of those."

Liv looked over at him, confused, and said "Eli?"

He nodded back at her and said, "Eli."

He smiled at Jamie, his god damn charmer smile that weakened her for 12 years, and Jamie smiled back. Seemingly pleased that he wasn't some deranged, strung out serial killer.

But instead was quite attractive, infuriatingly charming and had ridiculous blue eyes, just like Liv had told her.

...

Later that night, she was sitting on the couch, curled up with a blanket, waiting for El to come back down.

As she was sitting on the couch her phone rang. She leaned forward to get a look at the screen from where it was sitting on the coffee table in front of her, she sighed and picked it up.

"Don." She said.

"He's there, isn't he?"

"Yes." She figured once he found out he took off he'd figure so. That or he went crazy. Either way he was probably going to want to have his ass.

"When?"

"Yesterday morning."

"And you didn't call me?" He sounded hurt.

"Olivia, I could have stopped him if I knew where he was going." He says, then mutters, "I should have never told Fin."

"Cap, it's alright. We're doing fine."

"Don't lie to me, Olivia."

She contemplated telling him they had slept together, but figured bad move. And hell, she didn't even know what that meant. Let alone to tell someone else.

"We are. He's fine. I promise I didn't shoot him. And Nora loves him. And I'm doing..." She sighs, "Fine."

She does still keep a gun in the house. A Sig, cop gun. Knows he knows that. Knows Elliot probably figures so. It's in a safe in her closet with a combination that Nora could never figure out without her telling her. Elliot's birthday. She plans to eventually teach her how to shoot it. Maybe in 10 years, 15, 20. A comfortable age. Then give her the combination when she knows she can comfortably, and safely shoot it. After all, she's a cop. Through and through, she trusts herself and knows she could keep Nora safe, but she feels safer with a gun. She's got a feeling that with double cop blood, and _good_ cop blood, the kid will probably be a damn good shot anyway. And she likes to get away to the range sometimes, Jamie comes to watch Nora, or she takes Nora there, or the park, and she decompresses. It's always worked for her. Nearly 13 years on the force and it's always been soothing. Except after Gatano. Then she didn't want to look at the thing.

But now it works. And when you're raising a four-year old version of Elliot, with a little of her thrown in there here and there, and she swears to god some of Don, which she had no idea how the hell happened, figures maybe he rubbed off on her, you need something to take the edge off. Gun fire in a safe environment with a gun that feels like home in her hand works for her.

"I'm not worried about him, Olivia. I'm worried about you, and peanut."

He gave her that nickname the second time he came out, when she was two.

She told him she didn't like peanuts. He told her she was too much like her mother.

"We're fine, Don. She's fine. Happy, actually."

"Look, Liv, I don't doubt that you'd never put her in a dangerous or uncomfortable situation. It's not your judgment when it comes to her that I'm worried about."

"I can take care of myself."

"I don't doubt that a bit. But I know your weakness when it comes to him. I watched it for 12 years. And I know his weakness when it comes to _you_." He says and she thinks he knows them too well.

"It's hard. He seems to hate me a hell of a lot less than I would have expected. Than I want. But we're managing. And he's trying, I'm trying. _We're_ trying."

He's silent on the other end so she sighs and goes on.

"We're trying not to screw up and be us. We're trying to break the damn pattern. I can't tell you how well it's working, but we're trying. That's more than we've ever done before. At least constantly. We don't want to default back."

She's pretty sure they're already failing at that, though.

"I'm proud of you, Olivia. Him too." He finally says.

"Really, you're proud of me for keeping his daughter from him for _four_ years? For screwing up so badly I don't know how the hell to fix it? For making the biggest mistake I've ever made?"

"Olivia." A stern warning.

She sighs again and says, resigned, "I'm in too deep, Don."

"You're crawling out as we speak, Olivia." He says and she didn't realize how much she missed his condescending ass. She needs to go home.

"Is he there, now?" He asks.

"Yeah. He's upstairs with Nora."

He doesn't say anything.

"God, I can hear your eyebrows raise from here. It's fine. She asked if Mr. Elliot could read her, her story."

"Mr. Elliot?" He questions.

"She doesn't know." She says. A little saddened. Sometimes she wishes like hell she did, but she figures it's too soon to spring on her yet.

"Don't wait too long to tell her, Olivia. She's four, but she'll wonder why Daddy shows up and no one told her."

"I won't."

"Good. Listen, you call me more, Okay? Especially with the situation. I hear from you too little as it is."

"Yes, sir." She says, on the verge of tears. Don's one of the first people to show genuine, unabashed, consistent care for her, and interest in her. And he still does to this day. Sometimes she forgets that. And she hates herself for it.

"Let me talk to him when he's done." He says.

She panics a little. But he's practically his kid, too. Sometimes she forgets that.

"Stop it, Olivia. He's practically a Son to me, you know that. Let me talk to him."

God damn it, he knows her _too damn well_.

"Okay." She whispers.

They sit there on the phone for a minuet more, then she hears Nora's door click shut, and sees El crest at the top of the stairs.

As he's coming down the stairs he seems to notice the phone in her hand.

She wishes she could communicate to him, with a look, who it was.

Like the old days. The old them.

A fore-warning of sorts.

He gets to the bottom of the steps and pauses a little, then walks over to where she's sitting.

Once he gets there she hands the phone up to him.

"Don." She whispers when he gives her a quizzical look.

He nods his head and steps around her legs, to sit next to her.

"Don?" He says.

She wishes she could hear what Don was saying. She tries to read Elliot to find out, but she's not as good at that as she used to be.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Good. Alright."

He sits back, and so she looks forward to the floor in front of the coffee table, then at the wall in front of her.

"Incredible." She figures that one's got something to do with Nora.

"Dead ringer." He says, laughing a little.

That one, she figures has a little something to do with her.

"I will."

"No, she's fine."

Man will never take her word.

"I know, Don."

"Tell him I'm sorry." He says.

Sorry? Elliot Stabler is, sorry? For what? What the hell did he do?

"Yeah, yeah. I'll make her. I won't let up until she does. Get Nora in on it, too."

Seriously? Banning together and using her own kid for ploy, asses.

"You, too. Yeah, me too. I will."

He's nodding now. He's always done that. Knows damn well the person on the other end can't see him, but gestures anyway. Every time she's been on the phone with him she pictures him doing that, and making those faces he's always made.

God, he's adorable.

This big, brooding man is adorable.

"Okay, bye." He says, then brings the phone down and swipes the end button.

He sets it on the coffee table, then looks over at her.

"He says you need to call him more."

"Yeah, he lectured me about that one, too."

She shakes her head and mutters "_Ass_.", under her breath.

"He misses you, Olivia. I can understand that." He says and her heart cracks apart a little more.

She shakes her head, tucks her hair behind her ear, sighs and then sits back.

"He's worried, about Nora." He says.

She looks over at his form, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, and her heart hurts, so badly.

"He's worried about me around my own daughter, Olivia. He's known me for 21 years, and he's worried I might hurt my own daughter. How fucked up is that?" He asks.

God, if she thought her heart hurt before.

"He isn't worried you'll hurt her, Elliot."

"Do you think that, too?" He asks, looking back at her.

"No. If I did do you think I would have let you up there alone with her?"

He's just shaking his head now, looking back in front of him, folding his hands together.

"And he's not worried that you'll hurt her. He's worried this will be hard on her, and that's not your fault. It's mine." She says.

He bows his head, and she swears to God she's going to cry.

"Elliot." She says.

He doesn't respond so she tries again.

"El." This time more of a whisper.

She places her hand on his back, and he says, "I hate this, Olivia."

She can feel him struggling to keep his breath regular, and she can feel herself struggling not to lose it.

"I do too, El. And I'm so, so sorry."

"Liv." He says. "Sometimes you gotta let me express that without apologizing."

She doesn't know what to say.

"We gotta get through this together. I _want_ us to get through this together." He says.

She nods her head even though he can't see her, and she thinks she's more like him than she'd like to admit.

He sits up and leans back, looking over at her, her hand falling.

"What are you so sorry for?" She asks, nodding her head over to the phone.

"I gave Fin a black eye." He says.

"I thought you just slammed him against the locker?!"

"I may have hit him when he wouldn't tell me, too."

"Elliot." She says, stern.

"I was fucking desperate, Liv. I had to know."

"So you hit poor Fin? You gave him a black eye, Elliot."

"He's walking around telling everyone he got in a bar fight. Munch is busting him out."

"What the hell's he telling them, then?"

"He's telling them a perp did it. Says it's more believable than a bar fight. Says he's not bad enough for that."

She makes a small snorting noise, because yeah, he is.

"I feel like I recall a 'more in check' anger comment." She says.

"Now."

She looks over at him skeptically, eyes him, her arms crossed over her stomach.

"What, you gonna tell me I'm a danger to my daughter now, too?"

"You know damn well that's not what Don meant. And I know you would never hurt her, Elliot. Just like for 12 years I told every asshole you wouldn't hurt me. I _trust_ you, El. You're harmless."

He looks hurt. Wounded. Guilt ridden.

"They were assholes, El. They didn't know what they were talking about. You had an anger problem, but I never _once_ felt threatened."

He nodded and said "Harmless?" Looking back over at her and raising his eyebrows.

"Well, sort of." She said, smiling. In her eyes, he was a fucking force to be reckoned with, but when it came to her, to the right situation, to the right people, to undeserving people, especially now to his _own daughter_, harmless.

"Good to know." He said, smiling, his blues crinkling and lighting up a little.

She feels the urge to jump him, right there, on the couch. And she thinks she's got to get that under control. She also feels the urge to cry.

Fucking mess.

He's looking at her funny now and she asks him "Why the hell are you looking at me like that?"

He shakes his head, and readjusts his position on the couch. Now turning towards her a little, and putting his arm up along the back of the couch. Effectively putting his hand in place to play with the back of her hair. He's not helping her urge to jump him.

He blinks slowly at her, and he just seems to be taking her all in, and putting out nothing but adoration. He's too fucking much for her, right now.

"You're going to kill me." She says.

"What?" He says, feigning innocents, laughing a little.

"You're an ass."

"Hmm, love you too, Liv."

She wants to panic. But he says it so casually, _because_ he says it so casually.

He's smiling at her and she's in so fucking deep with him, 16 years deep.

He slides his hand down from her hair to the juncture between her shoulder and her neck, squeezing a little. Reassuring, she feels. He's an insensitive asshole sometimes, but he's always been able to do that.

"What does this mean, El?" She asks him.

"What?" He says.

"Us. This." She gestures between them. "Last night." She says.

"I don't know." He says. There's that damn phrase again.

He swallows, tucks a couple of figures up under her ear and runs his thumb along under the curve of her skull there , then sighs and says "But I know I've waited too damn long, and I have no intention of walking away if that's what you're asking."

She wasn't', but she's glad she knows.

She nods and looks down, fiddling with her fingers in her lap.

"Liv." He says, but she doesn't look up.

"Hey." He tries again.

"Olivia, look at me." He says when she still doesn't respond.

She looks up at him and he moves that hand back around the other side to tuck some of her hair back behind her ears, then puts it back down on the couch.

"I'm sorry I'm such a damn dysfunction at this, El." She says.

"You're not a dysfunction." He says, shaking his head. "You're cautious. With damn good reason."

He takes a second and pauses then said, "With anyone, Liv. But especially with us."

"You're not?" She asks, squinting her eyes at him. Still fiddling with her fingers.

"Of course I am. Doesn't matter. I'm still here."

"I'm here too, El. I'm just..."

"A little slow to warm up. I know. Spent 12 years with you, don't think you really trusted me outside the job until about 8 in. Even then it was shaky."

"We were a fucking mess, then."

"Weren't we always?" He says, smiling and raising his eyebrows.

"That was a rough patch, though."

"Yet we made it another 4 years."

"Not without shit."

"Made it, Liv. Take it at that."

She just looks back down to her lap.

"The day we're easy I'll start worrying." He says.

"Maybe just easier would be nice." She says.

"We'll make it through, Liv. I'm not just here for her."

Her heart nearly stops with the intensity, and intimacy of that. They may have slept together, but emotional intimacy was never their thing.

They were always screw ups at that.

And that statement might hold more meaning than when he says he loves her, to her.

Sometimes she wonders how her heart loves him this much. Even after all these years. Even after all of it. All of _them_, and all the crap they've been, and caused, and waded through.

Maybe they will make it.

Or maybe they'll crash and fucking burn.

Maybe she's willing to take that risk.

"You wanna go upstairs?" She asks him.

He raises his eyebrows at her and she's gonna knock his ass out.

"Not like that. I just figured, it's late, Nora's out, and there's a perfectly good, queen sized, pillow top bed up there waiting."

"Pillow top, huh?"

"Well." She says, standing up. "Momma's gotta treat herself."

He looks like he's either going to catapult into a laughing fit, or explode from pure shock.

"I think this clear air over here has gone to my head." She says.

"Yeah." He says, standing up with her. "You've lost it."

"Hmm, good thing you're here to save me then, right?" She even catches herself on that.

"God, I need sleep."

"Then move it." He says, jutting his head towards the stairs.

She shakes her head, laughing, turning around and starting up the stairs, him following her, his hand falling to the base of her lower back. Leading her, and causing chills to run all the way up her spine, then falling in step behind her one the stairs.

"You know, some things never change." He says as they're half way up, his hand now fallen.

She turns her head back to see what he means.

He's blatantly staring at her ass. She outta short stop his ass right now and send him flying down the stairs.

She shakes her head, shrugs her shoulders and then says, "Well, I mean, your kid is gorgeous, she had to get it from somewhere."

He smiles, shaking his own head slightly, then when she's turned her head back around, he hooks his fingers in one of the back pockets of her jeans, pulling a little, and she stops.

He moves up closer behind her, then beside her, taking her hand and leading them the rest of the way up the stairs and into the bedroom.

* * *

**AN:** I feel like sometimes Liv forgets she's not the only one who's like Don's kid. Daddy's little girl syndrome, I guess. It's adorable. Sometimes hurts a little, though, like times like when Don has to mention to her that El was like his Son, and having to see the hurt on her face when she realizes so, because she's already in an enough of an emotional turmoil because she's just found out he's put his god damn papers in, and I'm already on the couch sobbing into a tissue.

Btw, though I love Liv for having a Mustang, I'm more a 1967 Chevy Impala SS 427 Coupe girl, myself. Black, please. And no, not because of Supernatural. Though an Impala, it's not an SS or a Coupe. But talk about dream car.

She's a stick, she's loud, she's fast, and she's _bad ass_.

Imagine pulling up to family gatherings in _that_.

Oh, yeah, another btw, the whole 21 years things, I'm basing that off of in the first season, El's says when he's testifying that he's been apart of the unit five years. That was 16 years ago. 16+5=21. Even though I swear sometimes we say one thing, then three years alter change it. But even though those details are a little shaky, I went with it.

Anyway. Who's up for a trip? *Wink, wink*

Maybe that's the **up next**. Maybe, baby.

_**Maybe. Baby.**_


End file.
